STUDIES   IN   THE 
HISTORY    OF    VENICE 


STUDIES  IN  THE 
HISTORY  OF  VENICE 


BY    HORATIO    F.    BROWN 

AUTHOR  OF  "LIFE  ON  THE  LAGOONS,"  ETC. 


VOL.  I 


NEW  YORK 
E.   P.    BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

1907 


PRINTED  BY 

HAZELL,  WATSON  AND  VINEY,   LD., 

LONDON   AND  AYLESBURY, 

ENGLAND. 


HENRY  MORSE.  STEPHEN? 


UN1VERSIT?  OF  CALTPORNIA 
SANTA  BAE3ARA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


To 

MY  MOTHER 


PREFACE 

THESE  Studies  are  intended  to  illustrate  Venetian 
history  by  dwelling  upon  certain  crucial  moments  and 
significant  episodes  in  the  formation,  growth,  and 
decline  of  the  Republic,  by  drawing  attention  to  the 
Constitutional,  Financial,  Commercial,  and  Diplomatic 
development  of  the  State,  by  an  examination  of  its 
attitude  towards  the  printing  press,  the  book  trade 
and  ecclesiastical  censorship,  and  by  recounting 
picturesque  events,  such  as  the  career  of  the  alchemist 
Bragadin  and  the  Spanish  Conspiracy,  which  are 
symptomatic  of  decline.  The  history  of  Venice  is  full 
of  similar  topics,  and  these  Essays  do  not  pretend  to 
cover  the  whole  field ;  there  remain  vital  questions 
like  the  Fourth  Crusade,  the  colonial  policy  of  the 
Republic,  her  navy,  and  so  on,  to  which  I  may, 
perhaps,  some  time  return.  I  have  selected  my 
subjects  from  every  period  of  Venetian  history, 
beginning  with  the  foundation  of  Rialto  and  closing 
with  the  relations  between  the  Republic  and  the 
Commonwealth  of  England. 

Bishop  Creighton  once  suggested  that  it  might 
be  possible  to  write  the  history  of  Venice  in  a  series 
of  Essays;  he  also  added  that  "Venice  is  a  Kultur 
Stadt,  yet  its  Kultur  is  not  obvious  in  its  history. 
The  impression  which  it  produced  on  Europe  in  the 
days  of  its  greatness  is  not  the  same  impression 
which  it  now  makes  on  the  modern  mind.  Its  aesthetic 


viii  PREFACE 

appeal  is  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Florence,  intimately 
associated  with  the  events  of  its  past  history.  Nor 
does  its  history,  as  such,  harmonize  with  modern 
conceptions.  Like  its  site,  Venice  lies  remote  from 
the  rest  of  Europe,  and  owes  its  charm  now  to 
the  same  cause  as  it  owed  its  greatness  in  the  past." 
That  is  very  true,  and  that  is  why  in  many  cases  I 
have  chosen  such  comparatively  unstudied  regions  as 
Venetian  Diplomacy,  Venetian  Finance,  the  Venetian 
Constitution,  Venetian  Press  Censorship,  rather  than 
the  aesthetic  aspects  of  Venice  which  Ruskin  was  the 
first  to  illustrate.  The  art  of  Venice  belongs  now 
to  the  world  at  large,  but  in  the  history  of  Venice, 
as  perhaps  of  all  other  nations,  it  was  not  essential,  it 
was  a  fringe,  an  adornment,  the  outcome  of  commercial 
and  constitutional  well-being ;  bearing  the  imprint  of 
its  birthplace,  it  is  true,  and  eminently  characteristic 
of  Venice,  but,  nevertheless,  merely  a  flower  whose 
roots  must  be  looked  for  elsewhere.  Bishop  Creighton 
made  another  illuminating  remark  on  this  subject. 
"  The  State  of  Venice,"  he  said,  "  was  a  joint-stock 
company  for  the  exploitation  of  the  East."  It  is 
Venetian  commerce  which  explains  Venetian  arms 
and  diplomacy  and  gives  unity  and  coherence  to  the 
history  of  the  Republic.  The  history  of  Venetian 
commerce  is  still  to  be  written. 

Of  these  twenty  Essays,  ten  appeared  in  Venetian 
Studies,  published  twenty  years  ago,  and  now  long 
out  of  print;  but  each  of  those  Essays  has  been 
rehandled  and  brought  up  to  date.  The  publication 
of  Herr  Kretschmayr's  learned  Geschichte  von  Venedig 
(1905)  has  not  led  me  to  alter  much  in  the  Essay  on 
the  foundation  of  Rialto ;  but  Sig.  Battistella's  book 
on  Carmagnola  entailed  the  entire  rewriting  of  that 
Essay,  while  the  study  of  fresh  documents  dis- 


PREFACE  ix 

covered  among  the  papers  of  the  Inquisitor!  di  Stato, 
to  which  I  was  directed  by  Mr.  A.  Hinds — documents 
that  seem  to  have  escaped  the  notice  both  of 
Rajike  and  of  Romanin — made  it  necessary  to 
rehandle  the  whole  of  the  Essay  on  the  Spanish 
Conspiracy,  with  a  view  to  bringing  out  the  im- 
portant preliminary  episode  of  Spinosa  and  Grimani. 
The  remaining  ten  of  these  Essays  have  never 
appeared  in  book  form.  In  compiling  the  present 
Volumes  I  have  found  it  convenient  to  arrange  the 
Essays  in  chronological  order,  so  that  they  may 
help  one  another  and  the  reader. 

Canon  Lonsdale  Ragg,  by  calling  my  attention  to 
the  name  of  Fra  Marino  in  a  brochure  in  the  Biblioteca 
Marciana,  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  original  Venetian 
Index  of  1549,  whose  existence  has  been  denied  by 
Mendham,  Reusch,  and  Mr.  Putnam  in  his  recent  work 
on  The  Censorship  of  Rome  (1906).  I  have  printed  in 
extenso  the  documents  which  accompany  this  Index ; 
the  list  of  books  and  of  authors  is  identical  with 
Vergerio's  well-known  edition. 

Seven  of  these  Essays  are  based,  almost  entirely,  on 
documents  in  the  archives  and  libraries  of  Venice 
which  have  not  hitherto  been  used  by  historians,  and 
this  has  led  to  copious  quotation  in  many  cases ; 
while  throughout  the  work  reference  has  been  made, 
where  possible,  to  original  sources. 

HORATIO  F.   BROWN. 

CAC  TORRESELLA,  VENICE. 
May,  1907. 


CONTENTS 
VOL.  I 

PAGE 

THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO  I 

BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO  AND  THE  CLOSING  OF  THE  GREAT 

COUNCIL  ...... 48 

MARINO    FALIER              ,            .            ...            .            .            .  79 

THE   CARRARESI              ........  IO7 

CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE  .  .  .  .  I$2 

POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 2l6 

CATERINA  CORNARO,  QUEEN  OF  CYPRUS  .  .  .  •  255 
THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  VENETIAN  REPUBLIC  AND  THE 

STATE  ARCHIVES 293 

THE  COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY  OF  THE  VENETIAN 

REPUBLIC 335 


NOTE 

OF  the  following  Essays,  "The  Constitution  of  the  Venetian 
Republic"  and  "Shakspeare  and  Venice"  appeared  in  The 
Quarterly  Review  ;  "  Marino  Falier,"  "  Political  Assassination," 
"The  Commercial  and  Fiscal  Policy  of  the  Republic,"  and 
"Venetian  Diplomacy  at  the  Sublime  Porte,"  appeared  in  The 
Edinburgh  Review  ;  "  The  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  and  the 
Censorship  of  the  Press  "  appeared  in  The  Westminster  Review ; 
"A  Printer-Publisher  of  the  Sixteenth  Century"  and  "The 
Marriage  of  Ibraim  Pasha"  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly',  "An 
International  Episode  "  in  The  Cornhill.  My  thanks  are  due  to 
the  proprietors  for  leave  to  reprint.  "  Paolo  Sarpi "  was  delivered 
as  the  Taylorian  Lecture  at  Oxford  in  1895,  and  appeared  in  the 
Taylorian  volume  of  Studies  in  European  History^  and  also  in 
The  Scottish  Review. 


xii 


STUDIES    IN    THE    HISTORY 
OF  VENICE 

The  City  of  Rialto 

Quid  est  mare?  refugium  in  periculis. — ALCUIN 

THE  origin  of  that  singular  city  we  now  call  Venice 
is  one  of  the  most  obscure  problems  in  Italian  history. 
Tradition  marks  the  incursion  of  Attila  as  the  birth- 
moment  of  the  republic,  which  was  destined  to  grow 
in  silence — fed  from  the  East— during  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
to  embark  upon  the  troubled  waters  of  Renaissance 
politics ;  to  put  forth  the  blossom  of  a  glorious  art ; 
to  stand  as  a  bulwark  for  Europe  against  the  Ottoman 
power ;  to  flame  in  sinister  splendour  down  the  road 
of  corruption  ;  and  to  be  extinguished  at  last — the  oldest 
state  in  Europe — by  the  convulsions  of  the  French 
Revolution.  But  long  before  Attila  came  with  his 
Huns,  before  the  Goths  or  the  Lombards  or  the  Franks 
seized  on  the  plains  of  Northern  Italy,  those  mud 
islands  of  the  lagoon  must  have  had  their  population — 
a  race  of  fishermen,  poor,  hardy,  independent,  sea-bred 
and  sea-nurtured.  Cassiodorus,  secretary  of  Theodoric 
the  Great,  writes  to  the  Venetians  of  the  Lagoons  as 
to  a  people  who  had  already  achieved  a  certain  amount 
of  unity  and  self-government.  From  this  famous  epistle 
of  A.D.  523  we  gather  the  impression  of  a  community 
simple,  industrious,  republican,  and  we  obtain  our 
earliest  view  of  the  Venetian  villages1 — the  houses 

1  "  Viminibus  enim  flexilibus  illigatis,  terrena  illis  soliditas  aggre- 

gatur  .  .  .  proinde  naves  quas,  more  animalium,  vestris  parietis 
illigastis,  diligenti  cura  reflate." 

VOL.   I.  I 


THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 


rising  on  the  shoals,  saved  from  destruction  in  the 
ever-shifting  waters  by  the  frail  palisade  of  wattled 
osier.  There  is  a  breath  of  the  salt,  free  air  in  the 
secretary's  phrase,  "  Hie  vobis,  aquatilium  avium 
more,  domus  est." 

But  no  eye  noted  the  first  low  huts,  built  of  mud 
bricks,  nor  measured  those  light,  and  shallow  boats 
which  stood,  stabled  like  horses,  at  the  door  of  every 
house ;  no  historian  traced  the  internal  growth  of  these 
fishing  stations ;  and  we  have  been  left  to  suppose, 
what  has  often  been  stated,  that  the  refugees  from  the 
mainland,  flying  before  the  frequent  foreign  occupa- 
tions, found  the  islands,  where  they  sought  shelter, 
deserted  mud-banks  out  at  sea.  This  could  not  have 
been  the  case.  Venice  was  not  peopled  solely  by 
exiles  from  Aquileia,  Oderzo,  Concordia,  or  Padua. 
Through  the  obscurity  of  the  records  which  have 
reached  us,  we  can  trace  a  long-continued  struggle 
raging  inside  Venice,1  before  a  thorough  fusion  of  the 
original  and  the  immigrant  populations  could  be 

1  Throughout  this  essay  I  shall  use  the  name  "Venice"  for  the 
whole  lagoon  district,  reserving  "  Rialto "  for  the  city  we  now  call 
Venice.  It  is  certain  that  the  word  Venecia,  Venetia,  was  used  to 
indicate  three  distinct  localities  at  different  periods  in  its  history. 

(a)  The  oldest  use  of  the  word  applied  to  the  district  between  the 
western   confines  of  Pannonia   and   the    river  Adda.     (See  Paulus 
Diaconus,  Hist.  Lang,  ii.   14:    "Venetia  enim  non  solum  in  paucis 
insulis,  quas  nunc  Venetias   dicimus,   constat,  sed  ejus   terminus   a 
Pannoniae    finibus   usque    adduam   fluvium  protelatur."     Monticolo, 
Chronache    Veneziane  antichissime.   Cronaca  de  singulis  Patriarchis 
nove  aquilleie,  p.  5  :  "  Cujus  Venecie  terminus  a  Pannonia  usque  ad. 
Adam    fluvium   protelatur."     Ibid.    La    Cronaca    Ven.  del.   Diacono 
Giovanni,  p.   59  :    "  Siquidem   Venetie  due  sunt  prima  est  ilia  que 
in  antiquitatum  hystoriis  continentur,  que  a  Panonie  terminis  usque 
ad  adda  fluvium  protelatur,  cujus  et  Aquilegia  civitas  extitit  caput.") 

(b)  The   second  use   of  the  word  indicated  the   townships  of  the 
littoral,  which  were  united  under  the  first  Doge  Paoluccio  and  formed 
the  ducato  Veneto.     This  is  the  sense  in  which  John  the  Deacon 
invariably   uses   the  word  :  "  Secunda  vero  Venecia  est  ilia,  quam 
apud  insulas  scimus  que  Adriatici  maris  collecta  sinu  interfluentibus 
undis  positione  mirabili,  multitudine  populi  feliciter  habitant."     (See 
also  Monticolo's  edit.  pp.  64 :  "  Gradus  .  .  .  quemadmodum  antique 


HERACLEA  AND  MALAMOCCO  3 

brought  about.  There  were  years  of  quarrelling 
between  Malamocco,  where  the  older  race  predomi- 
nated, and  Heraclea,  peopled  chiefly  by  refugees  from 
Oderzo.  The  union  was  not  effected  until  the  city 
of  Rialto,1  the  city  we  now  call  Venice,  rose  to  pre- 
eminence on  the  ruins  of  Heraclea  and  of  Malamocco, 
as  the  monument  of  Pipin's  attack  and  defeat.  The 
choice  of  Rialto  as  the  seat  of  the  government  is  the 
starting-point  of  sequent  Venetian  history.  Around 
Rialto  we  gather  all  those  memories  which  are  chiefly 
associated  with  the  name  of  Venice — the  wealth,  the 
splendour,  the  pride  of  the  Adriatic's  Queen ;  Rialto 
floating  on  the  water,  a  city  that  is  "always  just 
putting  out  to  sea." 

Venecie  Aquilegia,  ita  et  ista  totius  nove  Venetie  caput  et  metropolis 
fore  dinoscitur  "  ;  p.  101  :  "  Obelierius  audacter  Veneciam  intravit," 
when  recording  Obelerio's  entry  into  Malamocco,  etc.) 

(c)  The  third  use  of  the  word  is  that  which  is  applied  to  the  city 
that  we  now  call  Venice.  That  city  was  originally  known  as  Rialto, 
Rivoaltus,  and  its  port  was  called  San  Nicolo  di  Rialto.  Rialto 
continued  to  be  the  correct  indication  of  place  in  notarial  deeds  till 
quite  late  in  the  history  of  the  republic. 

It  is  very  uncertain  when  the  word  Venecia  was  first  applied  to  the 
city  we  call  Venice.  The  penny  of  the  Emperor  Louis  I.,  the  Pious 
(814-840),  bears  the  word  VENECIA,  so  does  the  penny  of  Lothair  I. 
(840-855),  and  we  have  another  penny,  also  of  Louis  I.,  with  the  legend 
VE  NEC  I  AS  MONETA.  These  coins  are  certainly  from  an  imperial 
mint,  probably  Pavia  ;  but  in  spite  of  the  analogy  of  Pavia,  Lucca,  and 
Treviso — where  the  name  refers  to  a  city — we  are  inclined  to  believe 
that  Venecia  and  Venecias  here  refer  to  the  district,  not  to  the  town. 
Between  the  years  855  and  880  Venice  herself  issued  a  penny  with  the 
legend  XPE  SALVA  VENECIAS,  in  which  we  may  be  pretty  sure 
that  Venecias  means  the  district.  We  may  note  that  there  is  a 
difference,  however,  between  Venecia  and  Venecias.  The  proper  style 
of  the  community  down  to  the  year  1421  was  Veneciarum  communitas. 
Monticolo  (Nuovo  Arch.  Ven.  iii.  p.  386  note)  says :  "  The  earliest 
use  of  the  name  Venecia,  as  applied  to  the  city,  is,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware,  to  be  found  in  the  thirteenth-century  Cod.  Vat.  No.  5273,  in 
a  passage  preceding  the  Annales  Breves,  fol.  8.  A. :  '  Anno  domini 
quatuor  centum  viginti  anum  edificatio  Venecie.'" 

1  The  name  probably  means  "  deep  stream,"  rivus  altus ;  it  may 
possibly  be  derived  from  ripa  alia,  or  high  bank,  or  even  from  the 
name  of  a  confluent  of  the  Brenta  called  Prealto. 


4  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

Rialto  was  the  city  of  compromise  and  of  survival  — 
of  compromise  between  those  discordant  elements 
which  constituted  the  home  population  of  the  fishing 
villages  ;  of  survival  between  two  great  external  and 
antagonistic  powers,  the  East  and  the  West.  On  one 
side  of  Venice  lay  the  mythic  splendour,  the  dim 
grandeur,  the  august  name  of  "  the  Golden  Emperor"  ; 
on  the  other  the  barbaric  energy,  the  juvenile  vigour, 
the  mighty  hand  and  outstretched  arm  of  the  Frankish 
king.  Constantinople  represented  the  civilization  of 
the  world,  the  long-inherited  lordship  of  the  Caesars  ; 
while  the  court  of  Charles  the  Great  seemed  instinct 
with  the  might  of  some  unmeasured  natural  force, 
eruptive  and  volcanic.  The  Eastern  Empire  was  old1 
and  mythical  through  age  ;  but  it  still  retained  some 
of  its  pristine  efficiency,  though  the  hand  of  sovereignty 
began  to  fall,  here  and  there,  from  the  government. 
The  Frankish  power,  on  the  contrary,  bounded  forward 
with  the  impetuosity  of  youth  ;  yet  destiny  reserved 
for  it  too,  although  so  young,  only  a  brief  life  in 
Italy.  It  fell  to  pieces  on  the  death  of  its  creator; 
and  "  Charlemagne,  with  all  his  peerage,"  faded 
away  into  the  shadowy  region  of  poetical  myth. 
Between  these  two  forces  Italy,  and  with  her  Venice, 
pursued  their  task  of  self-development.  The  action 
and  reaction  of  East  and  West  determined  the 
evolution  of  Venice  ;  and  Rialto  emerged  as  the 
result  of  their  operation  on  that  portion  of  the  Roman 
world. 

The  Eastern  Empire,  though  surely  setting  towards 
dissolution,  still  presented  the  greatest  power  in 
existence.  Its  longevity,  its  centuries  of  vigorous 
old  age,  were  continually  proving  how  massively  the 
structure  of  the  Roman  constitution  had  been  framed. 


1  HTT)V  ypavv  rr)V  ffacriXfiav,  MS  Koprjv  xpvcroa-irara\ovt  las  papyapo(j>o- 
pova-av."  Manasses  in  Constant,  vii.  I  use  the  phrase  "  Eastern 
Empire  "  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  admitted  to  be  convenient  and 
justifiable  by  Prof.  Bury  (History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire 
—  London  :  Macmillan,  1889  —  vol.  i.  p.  vii.). 


THE  EASTERN   EMPIRE  5 

The  repeated  recovery  of  vital  force,  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  whole  system,  the  new  leases  of  life  effected 
by  Constantine,  by  Heraclius,  by  Leo  the  Isaurian, 
by  Nicephorus,  and  by  Basil,  demonstrated  the  solid 
ribwork  of  the  Roman  body  politic.  Under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  law  we  may  believe  that  the  subjects 
of  the  Eastern  Empire  were  well  governed.  Its 
chroniclers  have  chosen  to  dwell  upon  the  exceptions, 
recording,  chiefly,  instances  of  imperial  caprice  ;  but 
the  enormous  wealth  of  the  merchants  would  rather 
prove  that  property  was  secure,  commerce  active,  and 
justice  strictly  administered.  Nicephorus  I.  could 
never  have  incurred  such  a  torrent  of  obloquy  for  his 
alleged  extortions,  nor  could  Theodora  have  bequeathed 
so  vast  a  treasury  to  her  son  Michael  the  Drunkard, 
had  the  people  been  impoverished,  or  the  country 
ruined,  by  years  of  fiscal  oppression.  The  gigantic 
scale  of  the  imperial  operations  for  the  encouragement 
of  agriculture  shows  at  once  the  power  of  the 
emperors  and  their  earnestness  in  good  government. 
We  have  only  to  call  to  mind  the  colony  of  two 
hundred  thousand  Sclavs  transferred  by  Constantine  V. 
to  Bithynia,  and  the  corresponding  establishment  of 
Asiatic  agriculturists  on  the  borders  of  Sclavonia,  to 
perceive  that  the  Roman  emperor  was  both  the 
successor  of  the  Great  King  and  the  ruler  bred  in 
the  political  principles  of  the  early  Caesars.  And  the 
same  profundity  of  resource  appeared  in  the  military, 
no  less  than  in  the  financial  administration.  Con- 
stantine Copronymus  found  no  difficulty,  after  the  loss 
of  an  army  and  fleet  numbering  two  thousand  trans- 
ports, in  taking  the  field  against  the  Bulgarians  the 
following1  year  with  a  fresh  force  of  eighty  thousand 
men  and  two  thousand  vessels.1 

During  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  the  Eastern 
Empire  was,  on  the  whole,  prosperous.  Nor  could 
the  continual  dynastic  changes  upset,  or  even  seriously 
shake,  the  structural  strength  of  the  constitution.  The 

1  See  Finlay's  History  of  Greece  (Oxford  :  1877),  vol.  ii.  p.  230. 


6  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

emergence  of  successful  soldiers  like  Leo,  of  feeble 
princes  like  the  Amorian  family,  of  pure  adventurers 
like  Basil  I.,  left  the  general  lines  of  government 
unchanged.  That  policy  of  careful  finance  and  vigor- 
ous military  administration,  initiated  by  Augustus, 
and  laid  down  by  him  as  the  basis  of  imperial  autho- 
rity, was  maintained,  for  the  most  part,  by  those  who 
subsequently  bore  the  title  of  emperor.  The  maxims 
of  Caesarship  were  held  by  them  as  something  hardly 
dependent  upon  their  personal  character.  The  prince 
was  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  administration  ; 
that  was  hereditary  and  traditional,  the  expression  of 
the  Roman  idea.  No  doubt  the  vigour  and  efficiency 
of  the  government  varied  with  the  qualities  of  the 
Augustus,  but  the  substantial  principles  never  altered. 
And  so,  distinct  from  the  national  life,  severed  from 
the  interests  of  the  people  and  almost  unobserved  by 
them,  there  existed  the  life  of  the  Great  Palace,  the 
private  economy  of  Caesar  as  sovereign  of  a  court, 
not  as  minister  of  finance  or  emperor  of  the  Roman 
armies. 

We  know  more  of  this  palace  life  than  we  know 
of  the  imperial  executive,  for  the  chroniclers  have 
busied  themselves  over  the  details  of  it.  We  see 
it  sumptuous  and  fantastic  under  Theophilus,  the 
emperor  who  played  Paris  to  the  virgins  assembled 
in  his  stepmother's  house,  and  chose  his  wife  by  the 
gift  of  a  golden  apple.1  He  is  the  Augustus  whose 
chief  glory  lay  in  building  the  Palace  of  Bryas,2  an 
imitation  of  the  caliph's  home  in  Bagdad.  The  por- 
phyry chamber  for  the  lying-in  of  empresses ;  the 
long  colonnades  with  tessellated  floors  and  marble 
pillars  made  for  cool  promenades ;  the  sleeping- 

1  Symeon  Mag.  Ann.  Corpus  Script.  Hist.  Byz.  (Bonn  :  1838), 
torn.  46,  p.  415. 

J  Sym.  Mag.  op.  at.  p.  421  ;  Theophanes,  Contin.  Corp.  Hist. 
Byz.  (Bonn),  torn.  46,  pp.  86-91  ;  Leo,  Script.  Hist.  Byz.  (Ven- 
etiis  :  1729),  torn.  vi.  p.  362  ;  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  capp. 
52.  53- 


THE  EASTERN   EMPIRE  7 

rooms  arranged  to  suit  each  season  of  the  year ;  the 
dining-halls  named  Er6s  and  Margarite ;  the  golden 
tree  with  artificial  birds  that  piped  and  fluttered  in 
the  branches ;  the  organs  hidden  in  the  ceilings  that 
played  soft  music  while  the  emperor  passed  below; 
the  system  of  sun  telegraphs  that  flashed  their  mes- 
sages from  the  borders  of  the  empire  and  wrote  them 
on  a  disc  inside  the  council  hall ;  the  telephone  and 
whispering  gallery  that  joined  one  corner  of  the 
gardens  to  another — these  and  a  hundred  other  such 
toys  and  curious  inventions  occupied  the  leisure  and 
amused  the  fancy  of  Theophilus  the  Unfortunate. 
Or  we  may  see  the  court  bigoted  and  fanatical,  ruled 
by  monks,  clamorous  with  arguments  in  favour  or  in 
condemnation  of  image-worship ;  settling  the  nature 
of  the  Trinity  by  blows  and  blood ;  engrossed  by  no 
more  actual  care.  Constantine  VI.  lost  his  throne  for 
a  breach  of  the  canon  law  in  divorcing  his  wife  to 
marry  Theodota ;  and  earlier  still,  in  the  year  669, 
the  troops  of  the  Orient  Theme,  catching  the  religious 
infection  from  ;their  chief  Constantine  IV.,  claimed 
that  the  emperor's  two  brothers  should  also  be 
crowned,  and  thus  a  Trinity  would  reign  on  earth, 
the  counterpart  of  that  in  heaven.  Leo  V.,  the  Ar- 
menian, owed  his  death  partly  to  a  scruple  about 
Christmas  Day  which  forbade  him  to  slay  his  enemy, 
Michael,  before  receiving  the  sacrament,  and  partly 
to  the  military  precision  with  which  he  attended 
matins  and  joined  in  the  psalms.  The  assassins 
recognized  the  emperor  by  his  deep,  sonorous  voice, 
and  stabbed  him  before  the  altar  in  the  chill  grey 
Christmas  morning.  Or  once  again,  and  in  opposition 
to  this  passionate  earnestness  in  matters  of  dogmatic 
dispute,  we  see  the  court  scurrilous  and  ribald  under 
Michael  the  Drunkard,  the  emperor  who  made 
Gryllus,  his  buffoon,  ride  in  procession  through  the 
streets  of  Constantinople,  robed  in  the  patriarch's 
vestments,  seated  on  a  white  mule,  and  attended  by 
eleven  mimic  metropolitans  chosen  from  among 


8  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

Augustus's  boon  companions.1  Michael  himself  fol- 
lowed in  the  train,  and  the  rout  sang  profane  songs 
and  obscene  psalms  to  popular  hymn  tunes ;  while, 
in  mockery  of  the  sacred  cup,  they  administered  a 
loathsome  draught  of  vinegar  and  mustard  to  any 
among  the  crowd  whom  they  could  catch  and  compel 
to  drink  it. 

But  whatever  the  personal  character  of  the  prince 
may  have  been,  frivolous  or  passionate  or  profane, 
affected  the  well-being  of  the  people  very  remotely. 
The  stories  which  crept  out  from  the  palace  merely 
served  to  fill  men's  minds  with  curious  astonishment 
and  wonder  as  for  something  heard  in  a  dream,  and 
helped  to  create  that  atmosphere  of  mystery  and 
fascination  which  made  the  private  life  of  the  emperors 
take  place  side  by  side  with  tales  of  Haroun  al 
Raschid  and  the  caliphs  of  Bagdad. 

And  the  almost  superhuman  greatness  of  the  im- 
perial title,  coupled  with  the  number  of  adventurers 
who  attained  to  it,  gave  the  popular  imagination 
ample  food  for  the  construction  of  myths.  The  current 
version  of  the  facts  alone  was  often  romantic  enough. 
Leo  the  Isaurian,  while  yet  a  poor  lad,  known  by  the 
name  of  Conon,  determined  to  leave  his  native  hills 
to  try  his  fortune  in  the  richer  lands  below.  One  day, 
as  he  was  journeying  across  the  plain,  he  rested  from 
the  noontide  heat  in  a  grove  of  ilex,  near  a  spring  of 
water,  and  turned  his  pack-mule  loose  to  graze.  As 
he  lay  upon  the  turf  he  found  that  he  was  not  alone, 
but  that  two  other  travellers  were  also  resting  in  the 
shade.  From  their  talk  he  learned  that  they  were 
Jews  and  astrologers,  and  the  two  strangers,  taken  by 
the  beauty  and  grace  and  strength  of  Conon,  readily 
satisfied  his  desire  to  know  what  the  future  might 
have  in  store  for  him.  To  his  astonishment  he  heard 
that  he  was  destined  to  rule  the  Eastern  Empire; 
and  in  return  for  their  brilliant  forecast,  the  Jews 
exacted  a  promise  that  when  Conon  should  come  to 
1  Theophanes,  Continual,  p.  124  ;  Sym.  Mag.  p.  437. 


THE  EASTERN   EMPIRE  9 

the  throne,  he  would  root  out  the  idolatrous  worship 
of  images  that  now  disgraced  God's  Church.  The 
prophecy  was  fulfilled  ;  and  Conon  became  the  second 
re  founder  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
'  The  legend  of  Basil  I.,  though  more  closely  related 
to  the  truth,  is  hardly  less  picturesque.  Born  a  poor 
groom,  but  gifted  with  beauty,  great  strength,  and 
a  singular  magnetic  power  which  made  the  most 
intractable  horses  quiet  at  his  touch,  Basil  deter- 
mined to  leave  his  father's  farm  to  push  his  way 
in  the  large  world.  His  wanderings  brought  him  to 
Patras,  where  he  fell  under  the  notice  of  a  rich  widow 
named  Danielis.  Through  her  kindness  he  accumu- 
lated money  enough  to  purchase  estates  in  Macedonia, 
and  he  became  a  member  of  the  family  by  the  religious 
ceremony  of  "  adelphosis  "  with  the  widow's  son.  But 
Patras  offered  too  narrow  a  field  for  Basil's  growing 
ambition.  He  quitted  the  Peloponnese  for  Constanti- 
nople. Another  tradition  of  his  life,  but  one  which 
hardly  accords  with  the  story  of  his  Macedonian 
properties,  represents  the  young  groom  entering  the 
capital  alone  one  evening,  with  a  wallet  on  his  back 
and  nothing  in  his  pockets.  He  went  to  sleep  on  the 
steps  of  a  church  near  the  gate.  That  night  the 
priest  of  the  church  was  troubled  with  a  dream  which 
told  him  to  go  out  and  bring  the  emperor  in,  for  he 
lay  sleeping  at  the  door.  Twice  he  obeyed,  but  found 
no  emperor,  only  a  young  man  lying  on  the  church 
steps  asleep.  The  third  time,  to  exorcise  the  dream, 
he  roused  up  Basil,  brought  him  into  the  house,  and 
gave  him  supper  and  a  bed.  The  young  groom  rose 
rapidly  into  favour  through  his  skill  in  horse-training, 
till  he  at  length  attracted  the  notice  of  the  court. 
His  fortunes  were  secured  when  one  day,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Emperor  Michael,  he  wrestled  with 
a  Bulgarian  champion  and  overthrew  him.  Michael 
made  him  his  prime  favourite,  and  never  took  his 
riotous  pleasures  but  with  Basil  at  his  side.  At  last 
two  successful  murders,  first  of  Bardas  Caesar  and  then 


io  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

of  Michael  himself,  placed  Basil  on  the  throne.  He 
founded  the  great  Basilian  dynasty  and  reigned  him- 
self for  nineteen  years. 

There  are  many  other  stories  from  the  lives  of 
emperors,  patriarchs,  and  generals  to  be  met  with 
in  the  Byzantine  chroniclers.  They  are  half  real, 
picturesque,  and  all  deeply  tinged  with  Eastern  fancy  ; 
but  they  have  little  connection  with  the  movement  of 
the  government.  They  appealed  to  the  imagination 
in  the  distant  provinces  of  the  empire — in  Venice  or  in 
Naples,  for  example— making  Constantinople  a  place 
where  men  desired  to  go,  a  city  of  dreamland  wonders. 
They  created  a  strong  bias  of  curiosity,  of  attraction, 
of  sympathy  in  favour  of  Byzantium,  as  opposed  to 
the  repulsion  exercised  by  the  nearer  and  more 
positive  power  of  the  Lombards  or  the  Franks.  The 
doge's  sons  sought  Constantinople  when  they  could ; 
the  doges  themselves  coveted  honorary  titles1  con- 
ferred by  the  emperor ;  the  people  answered  Pipin's 
summons  to  surrender  with  the  cry,  "  We  choose 
to  be  the  subjects  of  the  Roman  king,  and  not  of 
you." 

But,  in  spite  of  the  emotional  bonds  which  bound 
the  distant  members  of  the  empire  to  Constantinople 
as  their  head,  the  hand  of  government  began  to  fall 
away  from  many  provinces.  Italy  was  lost.  Venice 
and  Naples,  though  they  acknowledged  the  suzerainty 
of  Constantinople,  enjoyed  an  independence  virtually 
complete.  Venice  was  in  a  position  to  ignore  Byzan- 
tium when  it  suited  her  to  do  so;  to  continue  unin- 
terruptedly her  own  line  of  development,  and  yet  to 
make  use  of  her  nominal  dependence  as  a  bulwark 
against  invasion  from  the  west.  Only  in  the  extreme 
east  the  great  empire  still  stood  firm,  keeping  the 
Saracens  always  at  bay.  Under  the  shelter  of  its 
unconscious  protection  the  nations  of  modern  Europe 
found  leisure  to  ferment,  to  seethe  and  settle  down ; 
taking  slowly  that  form  under  which  we  recognize 
1  Armingaud,  Venise  et  le  Bos  Empire  (Paris  :  1868). 


THE  LOMBARD  KINGDOM  11 

them  now.1  This  is  the  eternal  benefit  conferred  by 
the  Eastern  Empire.  Venice,  when  her  day  of  power 
arrived,  performed,  though  on  a  smaller  scale,  a 
similar  service  for  civilization  by  her  almost  single- 
handed  opposition  to  the  Turk. 

The  forces  at  work  upon  the  other  side  of  Venice, 
towards  the  west,  operating  upon  her  in  such  a  way 
as  to  determine  the  evolution  of  her  independence 
and  the  creation  of  Rialto,  were  the  powers  of  the 
Lombard  and  the  Frank.  But  Italy  herself  modified 
the  action  of  these  powers  that  came  in  contact  with 
her.  And  perhaps  the  most  powerful,  the  most 
Italian  factor  in  all  Italy,  was  the  Church  of  Rome. 
It  is,  therefore,  by  observing  the  policy  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  popes  that  we  obtain  the  most  accurate 
view  of  the  part  played  by  the  foreigners  in  the 
development  of  the  peninsula.2  When  the  suppres- 
sive  weight  of  the  empire  was  lifted  from  Italy,  partly 
through  the  decay  of  the  imperial  power,  partly  by 
the  removal  of  the  emperor  to  Constantinople  and 
the  consequent  accentuation  of  the  Roman  See,  a 
rebound  towards  individuality  and  self-government 
manifested  itself.  In  isolated  portions  of  Italy,  in 
Venice,  in  Rome,  in  Naples,  Amalfi,  and  Bari,  the 
people  became  conscious  of  a  passionate  desire  for 
self-realization,  for  separation,  for  the  assertion  of 
their  own  peculiar  qualities,  which  the  empire  had 
so  long  suppressed.  But  these  fragments  were 
scattered  and  weak.  Byzantium  was  not  dead ;  an 
exarch  still  ruled  in  Ravenna ;  Lombardy,  Bene- 
ventum,  and  Spoleto  were  in  the  power  of  a  foreigner 
who  would  not  be  sorry  to  extend  his  borders. 
Politically,  and  quite  apart  from  any  religious  con- 
siderations, salvation  could  come  from  the  Church 
alone.  The  Goths  had  respected  the  Eternal  City; 
the  Lombards  never  effected  a  thorough  conquest. 

1  See  Rambaud,  D  Empire  Grec  (Paris:  1870). 
1  I  must  acknowledge  my  debt  to  Ferrari's  brilliant  essay,  Storia 
delle  Rivoluzioni  d*  Italia  (Milan  :  1870). 


12  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

Round  the  See  of  Rome  the  democratic  impulse, 
an  impulse  by  no  means  foreign  to  the  essence  of 
the  Church,  might  crystallize  and  grow  solid.  A  front 
of  resistance  might  be  offered  to  their  foes  if  the  pope 
would  consent  to  become  the  core  of  a  federation  of 
states  that  aimed,  first  and  foremost,  at  individuality, 
but  who  were  forced  to  seek  some  central  support 
upon  which  to  lean  until  their  own  position  should 
be  secured.  The  Church  itself,  however,  no  less  than 
the  other  fragments  of  Italy,  obeyed  the  state-making 
appetite  and  sought  a  temporal  dominion.  The 
opportunity  seemed  favourable  to  its  designs.  But 
one  imperative  condition  lay  behind,  tacitly  implied 
by  all  who  demanded  assistance  from  the  Church : 
the  condition  that  the  Church  itself  should  not 
endeavour  to  become  sovereign  at  the  expense  of  its 
confederates;  that  the  pope  should  never  attempt  to 
make  himself  doge  or  prince  or  emperor;  in  fact, 
that  the  Holy  See  should  allow  its  spiritual  authority 
to  be  used,  as  long  as  it  might  be  required,  for  a 
bulwark  against  Byzantium,  Pavia,  or  any  other  absorb- 
ing power,  so  that  behind  it  Venice,  Naples,  Amalfi 
might  pursue  their  own  self-chosen  course  of  develop- 
ment. Italy  stood  with  the  Church  or  against  it  as  it 
showed  readiness  to  satisfy  the  imperious  desire  of 
the  people,  or  gave  signs  that  it,  too,  was  seeking  a 
temporal  power  for  itself.  So  long  as  the  pope  con- 
sented to  act  as  a  shelter  to  the  embryonic  com- 
munities and  shared  the  struggle  for  individual 
preservation,  now  against  the  Lombards,  and  now 
against  the  Eastern  Empire,  he  commanded  the 
sympathy  of  Italy.  But  the  moment  he  manifested 
the  least  disposition  to  yield  for  his  own  advantage 
to  either  of  the  regnant  powers,  or  on  the  slightest 
suspicion  that  he  was  aiming  at  sovereignty,  the 
people  threw  their  passions  and  their  action  violently 
into  the  opposite  scale. 

The  popes  accepted  the  position ;  but  the  condition 
imposed  upon  them  was  just  one  they  could  not  fulfil. 


THE  CHURCH  13 

For,  while  undertaking  the  duties  of  confederate 
chiefs,  while  consenting  to  be  no  more  than  primus 
inter  pares,  they  could  not  escape  the  spirit  of  the  age 
acting  upon  them  in  their  narrower  political  capacities 
as,  heads  of  the  Church  and  individual  men.  They 
embraced  the  policy  of  creating  a  temporal  dominion, 
and  Italy  swayed  in  obedience  to  the  fluctuations  of 
their  course.  The  danger  that  beset  the  popes  from 
the  Lombards  and  from  the  East  determined  their 
action  as  a  continual  see-saw.  They  stood  now  with 
Pavia,  achieving  a  little  more  liberty  as  they  saw 
Byzantium  weak ;  now  with  Constantinople,  bolster- 
ing up  the  imperial  authority  if  the  Lombards  showed 
a  tendency  to  encroach.  All  the  time  their  conduct 
was  eagerly  scanned  by  confederate  Italy.  The  icono- 
clasm  of  Leo  the  Isaurian,  condemned  as  a  heresy 
by  the  Western  Church,  and  dividing  the  East  into 
two  furious  and  hostile  camps,  presented  a  favourable 
opportunity  to  deal  a  blow  at  the  emperor's  ascen- 
dency in  Italy.  Accordingly,  Gregory  II.  bound 
himself  in  close  alliance  with  Liutprand,  King  of  the 
Lombards.  The  pope  preached  the  enormity  of  icono- 
clasm,  and  the  king  lent  him  the  secular  arm  where- 
with to  give  weight  to  his  words.  The  Lombard 
troops  entered  the  exarchate  and  drove  the  exarch 
Paul  out  of  Ravenna  to  seek  refuge  in  Venice.  But 
the  Pope  immediately  found  himself  compelled  to 
undo  his  own  work.  For  Liutprand  claimed  the 
Pentapolis  as  his  own,  by  right  of  conquest.  This 
extension  of  Lombard  power  disclosed  a  danger  to 
the  independent  growth  of  papal  authority.  A  rapid 
backward  sweep  took  place.  The  restoration  of  Paul 
to  his  exarchate,  at  the  instance  of  the  pope  and  by 
the  help  of  Venice,  marked  the  extent  of  the  reaction 
against  the  Lombards. 

The  head  of  the  Church  was  now  placed  in  diffi- 
culties. His  struggles  to  keep  the  balance  adjusted 
between  the  two  forces  which  dominated  Italy,  a 
struggle  from  which  he  hoped  to  emerge  sovereign, 


14  THE  CITY   OF   RIALTO 

had  raised  up  for  the  Church  an  enemy,  both  in  Pavia 
and  in  Constantinople.  Liutprand's  vigour  infused 
new  life  into  the  Lombards,  and  his  conquest  of 
Ravenna  reawakened  the  desire  for  enlargement ;  his 
successors  were  sure  to  follow  the  lines  laid  down 
by  him.  On  the  other  hand,  Byzantium,  though  by 
no  means  strong,  had  gained  considerable  weight  in 
Italy,  thanks  to  the  reaction  in  her  favour  which  sent 
the  exarch  Paul  back  to  Ravenna.  Venice  experienced 
a  shock  of  alarm  at  the  results  of  the  pope's  Lombard 
policy.  The  capture  of  the  Pentapolis  threw  her  into 
the  arms  of  Constantinople,  and  there  she  was  held 
by  the  commercial  privileges  granted  to  her  on  the 
restoration  of  the  exarch.  For  the  moment  she  stood 
isolated  from  the  Church  and  suspicious.  The  pope 
had  shown  his  hand  a  little  too  openly.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  Church  was  forced  to  look  for 
support  elsewhere.  To  restore  the  equation  between 
itself,  Pavia,  and  Byzantium,  the  introduction  of  a 
fourth  factor  became  necessary.  The  victory  of 
Charles  Martel,  saving  Western  Christendom  as  it  did, 
drew  all  eyes  to  the  race  of  the  Franks.  The  popes 
selected  them  as  their  champions  for  the  next  move 
in  the  game.  Zacharias  sanctioned — as  far  as  such 
sanction  had  any  meaning — the  substitution  of  the 
Carolingian  for  the  Merovingian  dynasty.  The  house 
of  Charles  Martel  became  the  defender  of  the  Church  ; 
and  Pipin  I.'s  coronation  by  Stephen,  at  Paris,  sealed 
the  alliance. 

The  results  of  this  union  were  at  once  felt  in  the 
peninsula.  The  Lombards  now  learned  the  quarter 
whence  danger  threatened.  The  Church  pointed 
clearly  to  the  Franks  as  the  new  race  that  was  gird- 
ing itself  behind  the  Alps,  to  try  its  fortune  too  in 
battle  for  that  phantom  Helen  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  crown  of  Italy.  The  Lombard  kingdom  grew 
restless  under  the  presentiment  of  death.  Astolfo, 
Liutprand's  successor,  by  his  decided  enmity  alarmed 
the  pope,  and  warned  him  to  precipitate  the  ruin  of 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  FRANKS       15 

his  foes.  In  755  Pipin  came  to  Italy.  He  is  said  to 
have  made  a  gift  of  the  Pentapolis  and  the  exarchate, 
which  he  took  from  Astolfo,  to  his  ally  of  the  Holy 
See.  But  though  Astolfo  was  humbled,  the  Lombards 
were  not  annihilated.  No  sooner  had  Pipin  left  Italy, 
titan  Desiderius,  the  last  king  in  Pavia,  prepared 
himself  to  recover  the  lost  cities  and  to  chastise  the 
pope.  The  Lombards  made  their  final  effort  to  retain 
their  kingdom.  Desiderius  occupied  Comacchio,  the 
Pentapolis,  the  city  of  Ferrara.  He  pressed  on  to 
Gubbio  and  Urbino ;  he  even  threatened  Rome  itself. 
But  at  Viterbo  he  hesitated  before  the  excommuni- 
cation hurled  against  him  by  the  Holy  See.1  The 
Lombards  had  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  becoming 
orthodox ;  they  could  not  worship  the  pope  and  fight 
him  too.  Desiderius  recoiled  and  was  lost.  In  the 
year  774  Adrian  sent  for  his  ally,  Charles  the  Great, 
who  had  succeeded  his  father,  Pipin.  Charles  crossed 
the  Cenis,  blockaded  Desiderius  in  Pavia,  and,  after  a 
protracted  siege,  captured  both  the  city  and  the  king. 

The  pope  had  advanced  rapidly  towards  the  object 
which  the  Church  desired.  By  the  help  of  the  Franks 
it  now  seemed  probable  that  a  temporal  dominion 
would  be  added  to  the  spiritual  empire  of  the  Holy 
See.  Though  the  donation  of  Pipin  never  took  effect, 
yet  its  suggestion  marked  in  unmistakable  characters 
the  ambition  of  the  pope.  He  was  violating  the  tacit 
understanding  upon  which  alone  he  enjoyed  the 
political  sympathy  and  support  of  Italy.  Every- 
where appeared  signs  of  reaction.  In  Venice,  in 
Ravenna,  in  its  own  city  of  Rome,  the  people  pro- 
tested against  the  political  direction  which  the 
Church  threatened  to  impose  on  the  country.  The 
popes  passed  through  stormy  years  of  hostility  from 
their  own  subjects,  until  at  length  Leo  III.  was  assailed 
by  the  mob,  beaten,  imprisoned,  and  only  escaped  the 
loss  of  his  tongue  by  a  secret  flight  to  Charles  the 
Great  at  Paderborn. 

1  Muratori,  Annali  cF  Italia,  ad  aim.  772. 


16  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

And  now  the  consummation  was  almost  reached. 
Charles  brought  back  the  pope  to  Rome,  and  there  he 
himself  was  crowned  Emperor  of  the  West,  King  of 
the  Franks  and  Lombards.  On  the  other  hand,  Leo 
received  the  temporal  sovereignty  over  Parma,  Reggio, 
Mantua,  the  exarchate,  Istria,  Venice,  Beneventum, 
and  Spoleto.1  The  Church  and  the  Franks  concocted 
the  pact  and  donation  between  them.  Leo  believed 
that  he  had  restored  the  Augustan  Caesars  in  the 
person  of  Charles;  Charles  believed  that  he  could 
confer  a  veritable  kingdom  upon  his  ally  the  pope. 
But  both  beliefs  were  groundless,  and  proved  to  be 
so  almost  on  the  day  of  their  birth.  Charles  never 
was  a  Roman  emperor ;  he  did  not  so  much  as  reside 
in  Italy.  The  pope  never  could  be  a  reigning  prince ; 
he  could  not  so  much  as  levy  a  tax.  This  country 
which  they  were  partitioning  so  lightly  had  never 
been  consulted,  and  its  voice  was  of  paramount  im- 
portance. The  pope  and  the  emperor  had  no  sooner 
conceived  the  idea  of  an  Italy  based  upon  their  double 
power  than  their  mutual  gifts  began  to  prove  them- 
selves unsubstantial.  The  emperor  made  a  present  of 
that  which  was  not  his  to  give ;  the  pope  committed 
treason  against  the  passions  and  the  instincts  of  the 
people.  He  sought  to  become  a  king  where  no  kings 
were  to  be.  The  country  swung  around  in  violent 
contradiction  to  the  Church  and  to  the  Franks.  In 
every  direction  rose  the  cry  of  "  Save  the  country," 
and  the  pope  was  left  standing  alone,  deserted  by 
those  upon  whom  he  endeavoured  to  impose  himself. 
But  the  pact  and  donation,  though  wanting  in  solid 
reality,  stood  over  Italy  with  all  the  force  and  potency 
of  an  idea ;  always  in  evidence ;  passing  from  lip  to 
lip ;  fixed  in  the  imagination  ;  a  permanent  threat 
against  the  desire  for  self-effectuation,  the  state- 
forming  appetite  which  was  swaying  the  peninsula. 
Their  effect  remained  as  a  determining  factor  in  the 
course  adopted  by  such  communities  as  Venice ;  their 

1  Anastasius,  quoted  by  Ferrari,  op.  tit.  vol.  i.  p.  122. 


THE  EVOLUTION   OF  VENICE  17 

power  to  affect  the  political  imagination  endured 
just  because  they  were  an  idea  and  not  a  reality, 
therefore  more  difficult  to  refute,  to  negative,  to 
destroy. 

The  early  history  of  Venice  illustrates  accurately 
the  movements  of  an  Italian  state  labouring  towards 
independence,  between  the  triple  forces  of  the  East, 
and  West,  and  the  Church.  For  Venice  lay,  in  a 
certain  sense,  at  the  heart  of  the  struggle ;  she  formed 
a  part  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  and  she  had  been 
included  in  Charles's  donation  to  the  Church ;  she  felt 
the  full  stress  of  the  conflict.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  "Venice  on  her  lidi  stood  exposed  to  every  wind." 
The  interest  of  her  earliest  development  depends  on 
the  courage  and  determination  with  which  she  resisted 
all  conquest,  Gothic,  Lombard,  Byzantine,  or  Frank. 
Venice  enjoyed  a  position  both  peculiar  and  ill-defined. 
She  acknowledged  a  titular  allegiance  to  the  court  of 
Byzantium,  and  yet  by  her  acts  she  recognized  the 
virtual  supremacy  of  the  barbarian  kingdoms  on  the 
mainland  of  Italy.  Her  tribunes  received  orders  from 
Cassiodorus,  and,  later  on,  her  first  doge  paid  tribute 
to  Liutprand  in  return  for  certain  privileges  of  com- 
merce. On  the  other  hand,  her  public  deeds  were 
superscribed  with  the  name  of  the  Eastern  Emperor. 
Yet  neither  Byzantium  nor  Ravenna  nor  Pavia  could 
claim  the  lagoons  as  an  undisputed  portion  of  their 
empires.  The  twelve  confederate  islands  *  were  in 

1  Giovanni  Diacono,  Cronaca  Veneziana,  in  the  Cronache  Vencziane 
antichissime^  edit.  Giovanni  Monticolo  (Roma  :  1890),  vol.  i.  pp.  63-6. 
This  is  the  chronicle  known  as  the  Chronicon  Venetum  of  Sagornino, 
edit,  by  Zanetti,  Venetiis,  MDCCLXV.  The  Deacon  John  lived  in 
the  later  years  of  the  tenth  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  eleventh 
century,  and  is  therefore  one  of  the  earliest  Venetian  authorities  we 
possess.  He  was  employed  diplomatically  by  the  Doge  Pietro  II., 
Orseolo  ;  and  the  first  authentic  mention  we  have  of  him  is  in 
the  privilege  granted  to  the  doge  by  the  Emperor  Otho  III., 
and  dated  May  i,  995.  We  hear  of  him  again  in  a  privilege 
granted  by  Henry  II.  to  the  Abbess  of  San  Zaccaria  in  1018. 
The  twelve  island  townships,  as  given  by  the  Deacon,  are  Grado, 

VOL.   I.  2 


i8  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

fact  attempting  to  steer  a  difficult  course  towards 
independence  of  any  power.  These  twelve  islands, 
lying  close  together  along  the  shore  of  the  Adriatic, 
formed  the  nucleus  of  what  was  to  be  the  state  of 
Venice.  It  is  probable  that,  originally,  they  were 
little  more  than  fishing  stations  and  salt-pans  belong- 
ing to  the  wealthier  towns  of  the  mainland.  And  the 
famous  document,  recounting  the  despatch  of  the  three 
Paduan  consuls  1  sent  to  govern  the  village  of  Rialto, 
though  in  all  likelihood  a  forgery,  yet  represents 
the  facts  of  the  case — that  the  islands  were  under 
the  charge  of  the  rectors  or  consuls  appointed  by  the 
neighbouring  cities,  Monselice,  Padua,  Oderzo,  and 
Aquileia. 

But  in  the  stillness  of  the  lagoons,  in  the  freshness 
and  freedom  of  the  sea  air,  those  germs  of  indi- 
viduality and  liberty  which  began  to  quicken  as  the 
pressure  of  imperial  Rome  was  lightened,  found  a 
congenial  soil  and  fitting  nutriment.  The  islands, 
unorganized  and  disconnected  as  yet,  gained  two  solid 
advantages  from  the  sufferings  of  the  mainland  under 
foreign  invasion  :  their  population  increased  through 
the  influx  of  refugees,  and  the  decay  of  the  mainland 
cities  prompted  them  to  claim  their  freedom.  In  466 
the  twelve  islands  drew  together  in  federation ;  each 
governed  by  its  own  tribune,  elected  by  itself,  but 
all  meeting  in  parliament  for  the  consideration  of 

Bibiones  (between  Grado  and  Caorle),  Caprulas  or  Caorle,  Heraclea, 
Equilio  or  Jesolo,  Torcello,  Morianas  or  Murano,  Rivoaltus  or 
Rialto,  Metamaucus  or  Malamocco,  Pupilia  or  Poveglia,  Minor 
Clugies  or  Sottomarina,  Clugies  Major  or  Chioggia.  He  adds : 
"  Est  etiam  in  extremitate  Venecie  castrum,  quod  caput  argilis 
[i.e.  Cavarzere]  dicitur  sunt  etenim  apud  eandem  provintiam  quam 
plurime  insule  habitabiles."  For  a  list  of  these,  see  Monticolo's 
edition,  p.  66. 

1  Romanin,  Storia  documentata  di  Venezia  (Venezia  :  1858),  ignores 
the  story.  For  the  Paduan  document  see  Daru,  Histoire  de  la  Rfy. 
de  Venise^  and  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her  Invaders  (Oxford :  1880),  vol.  ii. ; 
Andreas  Danduli,  Chronicon,  ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  torn.  xii. 
lib.  v.  cap.  i.  p.  x. 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSTITUTION          19 

points  affecting  the  common  weal.1  This  was  the  first 
organic  movement  of  the  lagoon  villages ;  the  burst- 
ing of  the  seed  destined  to  ripen  into  so  noble  a  fruit. 
About  a  century  later  the  results  of  their  consolida- 
tion became  apparent  when  Narses  arrived  in  Italy. 
The  Paduans  in  vain  appealed  to  the  imperial  general, 
begging  him  to  restore  to  them  their  rights  over  the 
mouths  of  the  Brenta  and  the  Bacchiglione  which  fell 
into  the  lagoon.  The  islanders  argued  that  the  outlets 
of  these  streams  belonged  to  the  lagoon-dwellers  in 
virtue  of  the  labour,  which  kept  them  open.  Narses 
refused  to  decide  either  way,  and  the  mainlanders  were 
too  weak  to  enforce  their  will  without  his  aid.  The 
general,  by  this  conduct,  distinctly  acknowledged  the 
twelve  islands  as  an  element  in  the  empire,  and  they 
gained  a  solid  standing  ground.  The  people,  by  the 
realization  of  a  portion  of  their  desire,  became  con- 
scious of  the  whole  of  it.  The  sequence  of  Venetian 
history  from  this  point,  down  to  the  establishment 
of  Rialto  as  the  capital,  is  governed  by  a  series  of 
actions  and  reactions  rapidly  initiated  and  as  rapidly 
exhausted,  by  a  process  of  attraction  and  repulsion, 
now  towards  Byzantium,  now  away  from  it.  It  is 
the  people  who  move ;  throwing  their  weight  now 
into  this  scale,  now  into  that,  as  they  saw  that  the 
dreaded  danger  of  absorption  threatened  from  Italy 
or  from  the  East.  Always  with  the  passion  for 
independence  alight  in  them,  they  were  not  Roman 
or  Frankish  with  their  bishops,  nor  Byzantine  with 
their  doges,  but  Venetian,  with  a  strong  resolution 
to  make  themselves  recognized  as  such.  They 
stretched  ever  forward  to  the  object  of  their  desire, 
and  rejected  all  that  might  prove  inimical  to  their 
hopes  of  attaining  it. 

But  this  very  desire  for  self-realization,  while  it 
wrought  in  the  core  of  the  state  as  a  whole,  quickened 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  lib.  vii.  cap.  i.  p.  i  ;  Janotii,  Dialogus  de  Rep. 
Venet.  cum  notis  Crassi  (Lugd.  Bat.  1722),  ap.  Groev.  Thesaur. 
Antiquit.  It.  p.  40. 


20  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

a  similar  appetite  in  each  individual  member.  If 
Venice  craved  to  stand  sole  and  independent  in  Italy, 
each  tribune  also  desired  to  rule  sole  and  alone  in 
Venice.  Jealousy  between  Malamocco  and  Heraclea, 
rivalry  for  the  leadership  inside  Venice,  summed  itself 
up  in  feuds  and  quarrels  between  the  tribunes  of  the 
principal  towns,  until  the  federation  seemed  in  danger 
of  falling  to  pieces  through  the  intensity  of  its  own 
passion.  Only  one  solution  offered  itself — to  waive 
individual  claims  and  to  create  a  personal  head  of  the 
state,  concentrating  the  functions  of  government  in 
his  hands.  The  Venetians  elected  their  first  doge, 
Luccio  Paolo  Anafesto,  in  the  year  697.*  Internal 
discord  necessitated  this  change  in  the  constitution  ; 
the  antagonism  of  minute  particles  inside  Venice  had 
brought  about  the  revolution.  It  followed,  therefore, 
that  the  colour  first  given  to  the  dukedom  would 
depend  upon  the  character  of  the  city  which  chanced 
to  be  in  the  ascendant  at  the  moment,  of  the  sym- 
pathies of  that  tribunate  which  succeeded  in  imposing 
itself  upon  its  federate  brothers.  Anafesto  was  a 
Heraclean,  and  his  election  proclaimed  the  leadership 
of  Heraclea.  That  city  had  always  been  aristocratic 
in  sympathy,  with  a  strong  leaning  towards  Byzan- 
tium. This  quality  in  Heraclea  was  determined  in 
part  by  opposition  to  its  rival  Malamocco,  the  very 
kernel  of  the  democratic  factor.  And  so  the  doges 
first  emerged  tinctured  with  aristocratic  proclivities, 
leaning  towards  autocracy  and  ready  to  court  Byzan- 
tium and  the  emperor. 

Though  the  creation  of  a  doge  had  been  a  volun- 
tary act  and  clearly  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  the 
state,  yet  it  concentrated  and  intensified  the  internal 
oppositions  it  was  designed  to  allay.  For  the  doges 
and  Heraclea  stood  there  now  as  the  embodiment  of 
the  danger  from  Byzantium,  and  drew  upon  them- 
selves all  that  popular  jealousy  which  was  only 
appeased  by  the  ruin  of  the  reigning  city.  The  solu- 
1  Dandolo,  loc.  cit. 


INTERNAL  FEUDS  2.1 

tion  that  Venice  had  chosen  placed  her  in  the  same 
difficulty  as  that  which  the  action  of  the  popes  im- 
posed upon  the  whole  independent  movement  in  Italy. 
Like  the  popes,  the  doges  might  either  lean  too 
much  upon  one  or  other  of  the  external  forces  which 
were  threatening  to  absorb  their  state,  or,  by  a  skilful 
manipulation  of  internal  discords,  they  might  succeed 
in  making  themselves  sovereign.  The  people  desired 
their  doge  to  be  a  bulwark  against  any  encroachment 
by  the  Church  upon  civil  liberty ;  prince  of  them- 
selves, but  not  agent  for  Byzantium.  The  least 
swerving  from  the  prescribed  line,  the  slightest  sus- 
picion of  an  ambitious  policy,  the  first  note  of  a  servile 
submission  to  any  dominant  power,  sufficed  to  rouse 
the  people,  who  deposed,  blinded,  tonsured,  or  even 
slew  their  dukes.  In  the  same  light  the  people 
regarded  their  bishops.  They  desired  them  to  be  the 
safeguards  of  their  faith  against  heretical  Byzantium ; 
but  they  would  not  tolerate  that  their  spiritual  pastors 
should  act  as  political  agents  for  the  Church  or  for 
the  Church's  allies.  In  fact,  the  people  submitted  to 
their  doges  and  their  bishops  solely  with  a  view  to 
their  one  engrossing  object,  the  evolution  of  their 
own  independence.  The  attempt  of  either  bishop  or 
doge  to  impose  his  will  upon  the  state  was  sufficient 
to  insure  his  ruin. 

Resuming  the  course  of  Venetian  history,  we  find 
it  obeying  the  impulses  just  noticed.  In  the  year  728 
the  pope,  for  his  own  purpose  of  aggrandizement,  had 
united  with  Liutprand  against  Leo  the  Isaurian.  But 
the  results  of  this  policy,  the  capture  of  Ravenna  by 
the  Lombards,  proved  so  alarming  to  Venice,  that 
when  the  pope  discovered  his  mistake  and  desired  to 
undo  his  work,  he  had  little  difficulty  in  persuading 
Orso,  the  doge,  to  restore  the  exarch  Paul  to  his 
capital.1  For  the  moment  Venice,  obeying  the  impulse 
given  by  her  doge,  held  with  Byzantium.  In  reward 
the  Venetian  merchants  obtained  from  Constantinople 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  lib.  vii.  cap.  iii.  pp.  2,  3,  4. 


22  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

large  commercial  privileges  in  the  Pentapolis ;  while 
Orso  himself  received  the  honorary  title  of  "  hypatos  " 
or  consul.1  The  sympathies  of  Venice  set  towards 
the  East,  in  alarm  at  the  danger  from  the  Lombards. 
But,  while  the  state  was  in  process  of  formation, 
any  movement  implied  a  counter-movement.  The 
stronger  the  action  showed  itself,  the  more  rapid 
and  positive  the  reaction  was  sure  to  be.  To  the 
people  it  seemed  that  they  had  gone  far  enough 
with  their  doge.  He  had  achieved  one  object  of  his 
desire ;  he  might  reckon  himself  a  noble  of  the 
empire,  within  a  measurable  distance  of  the  Augustan 
majesty.  The  people  whom  he  governed,  however, 
were  intensely  sensitive.  These  dignities  bore  too 
much  the  character  of  a  pledge  committing  the  duke 
and  Venice  to  dependence  on  Byzantium.  A  doge  of 
Venice  should  not  wear  that  title  as  a  lesser  one,  nor 
think  it  honourable  to  hold  a  subordinate  office  of  the 
Eastern  court.  The  knowledge  of  their  own  weakness 
forced  the  Venetians  into  violence.  They  murdered 
Orso,  and  abolished  the  dukedom  in  favour  of  a 
yearly  magistracy,  called  the  "  mastership  of  the 
soldiery."2  They  revolted  fiercely  from  Byzantium, 
whither  their  doge  seemed  to  be  leading  them.3 

The  reaction  had,  of  necessity,  been  excessive ; 
part  of  its  effect  required  to  be  undone.  Experience 
proved  that  the  dukedom  was  essential  to  the  co- 
herence of  the  state.  The  mastership  of  the  soldiery 
recalled  the  evils  of  the  tribunate.  Another  current 
of  feeling,  opposed  to  the  violence  which  had  abolished 
the  dukedom,  set  in,  and  Heraclea  profited  by  it.  She 
desired  to  resume  the  prestige  she  had  lost  through 
the  suspension  of  the  dukedom.  In  the  year  742  a 

1  See  Bury,  Hist,  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire  (London:  Macmillan, 
1889),  vol.  ii.  p.  172,  p.  382,  note  3.  Ducange,  Gloss.  Med.  Grac. 
renders  it  by  vir primarius. 

3  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  p.  13  ;  cap.  iv.  p.  i. 

*  See  Kretschmayr,  Geschichte  von  Venedig  (Gotha :  1905),  vol.  i. 
pp.  48,  49.  Gfrorer,  Geschichte  Venedigs  (Gratz  :  1872),  is  inclined  to 
exaggerate  Venetian  dependence  on  Byzantium. 


MALAMOCCO  23 

Heraclean  victory  over  its  democratic  neighbour 
Jesolo  brought  back  the  doges,  in  the  person  of 
Deodato,  a  noble  of  the  victorious  city.1  But  the 
permanent  result  of  the  whole  revolution  made  itself 
felt  in  the  removal  of  the  government  from  Heraclea 
to  Malamocco,  the  democratic  centre.  This  was  a  step 
towards  the  thorough  compromise  of  Rialto.  A  Hera- 
clean,  an  aristocrat,  a  Byzantine  in  sympathy,  still 
reigns,  but  reigns  at  Malamocco,  democratic  and  anti- 
Byzantine.  Both  the  factors  of  the  future  Rialto  were 
modified  towards  the  point  where  union  became 
possible.  The  restoration  of  the  dukedom,  however, 
in  spite  of  this  modification,  was  the  work  of  Heraclea 
— a  proof  of  its  ascendency  regained,  and  therefore 
a  sign  that  the  state  had  taken  a  swing  towards 
Byzantium  again. 

And  the  course  of  Italian  politics  generally  deter- 
mined Venice,  for  a  while,  in  her  present  direction. 
For  the  reciprocal  attraction  between  the  Church  and 
the  Franks  had  just  begun.  The  two  powers  hostile 
to  Constantinople,  and  standing  together  for  the 
attainment  of  their  respective  objects,  the  mastery  of 
Italy  and  a  temporal  sovereignty,  were  becoming 
allies.  The  results  of  this  union  were  felt  at  once 
by  Venice.  The  Venetians  had  saved  the  exarchate 
from  the  Lombards ;  Charles  now  desired  to  see 
these  protectors  of  Byzantium  expelled  from  the 
Pentapolis,  in  order  to  pave  the  way  for  his  own 
occupation  of  that  district.  Accordingly,  under  the 
direction  of  Pope  Hadrian,  an  organized  attack  upon 
the  Venetian  merchants  took  place,  and  the  pope 
was  able  to  write  to  his  ally  informing  him  that 
his  will  had  been  done,  and  that  Venice  no  longer 
held  a  single  garrison  or  factory  in  the  Ravennate.2 

This  action  of  the  pope  awakened  the  greatest  alarm 
in  Venice ;  an  alarm  which  resulted  in  the  accentua- 
tion of  Byzantine  sympathies,  and  in  strengthening 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  ix.  p.  i. 

*  Codex  Carolinus  (Romae  :  1761),  Epist.  84,  ad  ann.  785. 


24  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

the  hands  of  the  doges,  to  whom  the  state  looked  for 
protection  from  the  imminent  danger.     How  close  the 
peril  had  come  the  Venetians  learned  when  they  dis- 
covered that   the   pope,  not  content  with   his   attack 
upon  them  in  the  Pentapolis,  had  actually  negotiated 
with  Giovanni,  patriarch  of  Grado,  for  the  creation 
of  a  Papal  and  Frankish  party  inside  Venice  itself.1 
The  materials  ready  to  the   patriarch's  hand  were, 
naturally,  the  democratic  faction,  who  still  eyed  Hera- 
clea  and   the   Heraclean   doges  with   bitter  jealousy. 
A  crisis  could  not  be  long  delayed.     The  questions 
which  now  agitated  the  whole  of  Italy  were  faithfully 
reflected    In    the    lagoons.      Like  a    sensitive  flame, 
Venice    responded    to    the    least    movement   on  the 
mainland.     She  was  not  yet  strong  enough  to  declare 
her  independence   between  two  such  powers  as  the 
Franks  and  the   Eastern  Empire;   therefore,  for  the 
moment,  her  perception  of  her  own  aims,  her  intui- 
tion of  the  political  problem,  became  confused.     The 
question  appeared  to  be  submission  to  East  or  West ; 
the  parties  of  Frank  and  anti- Frank  seemed  to  express 
her  central  difficulty.      But  in  reality  the  desire  for 
individual  freedom   remained  in  the  background,  as 
the  vital  and    motive    force    inside  the  state.      For 
how  long  a  crisis  could  be  delayed  depended  largely 
upon  the  character  of  the  doge.      Maurice  Galbaio 
had    guided    Venice    clear    of    embroglios    on    the 
mainland,    though    he    could    not    fence    her    round 
from    infection    by    the    general    turbulence    of    the 
political  atmosphere.2     His  son  Giovanni  succeeded 
him — a  man  of  very  different  temperament,   violent 
and  headstrong,  and  moreover  placed  in  a  position 
of  greater  difficulty,  for  the  crisis  was  ripening  to  the 
acuter  phase  of  its  progress.     The  pact,  the  donation, 
the  crowning  of  Charles,   were  all  notorious  now ; 
hung  out  like  a  danger-signal  for  those  communities 

1  Codex  Carolinus  (Romas  :  1761),  Epist.  52. 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xii.  p.  i  ;  cap.  xiii.  p.    i  ;  Filiasi,   Veneti 
Primi  e  Secondi  (Padova  :  1822),  torn.  v.  cap.  xxi.  p.  265. 


PRANKISH  AND  BYZANTINE  FACTIONS    25 

who  felt  the  impulse  towards  self-government,  leaving 
no  doubt  as  to  the  intentions  of  the  emperor  and  the 
pope.  Venice  had  to  look  to  herself.  By  a  violent 
deed  of  blood  she  wrote  her  refusal  to  be  included 
in  the  donation.  She  repelled  the  assumption  that 
she  belonged  to  Charles  and  was  his  chattel  to  give 
away.  She  denied  her  allegiance  to  a  pope  who 
could  presume  to  claim  the  imperial  title,  and  then 
to  sell  it ;  to  that  head  of  the  Church  who  dared  to 
prove  a  traitor  to  the  passions  of  his  country. 

In  this  fervour  of  opposition  to  the  Church  events 
centred  round   two  ecclesiastics.      The   bishopric  of 
Olivolo,  in  Venice,  fell  vacant,  and,  at  the  request  of 
the  Emperor  Nicephorus,  the  doge  appointed  to  that 
See  a  young  Greek,  named  Christopher,  a  mere  boy, 
sixteen  years   old  at  most.1    Giovanni,   patriarch   of 
Grado,  seized  the  opportunity  to  test  the  strength  of 
himself  and  his  party  against  the  doge  and  the  Byzan- 
tine element.      He   believed   that    he  was    powerful 
enough  to   show  a  mastery  which  would  determine 
the  waverers,  and  hasten  the  subjection  of  Venice  to 
Charles  and  to  the  pope.     Giovanni  refused  to  conse- 
crate  Christopher.      The  doge  remained  firm  in  the 
support   of   his   appointment.      Giovanni  replied   by 
excommunicating  not  only  the  young  Greek,  but  all 
his  adherents,  including  the  doge.     The  heat  of  party 
fury  and  his  own  violent  nature  determined  Galbaio's 
action.     He   sent    his    son    Maurice  with   a  fleet   to 
Grado.      The  patriarch  was   besieged   in   his   palace, 
pressed   closer   and   closer,  and  finally  thrown  from 
the  highest  tower.     Giovanni  had  shown   himself  a 
traitor  to  the  instincts  of  Venice,  as  his  superior,  the 
pope,  had  proved  a  traitor  to  the  desires  of  Italy.     Yet 
the  vengeance  which  overtook  the  patriarch  savoured 
too  strongly  of  tyranny.      It  came  as  a  culminating 
point  to  a  long  series  of  masterful  deeds  on  the  part 
of  the  Galbaij. 

1  Giovanni   Diacono,  Cron.   Ven.  ed.    Monticolo,  op.  cit.   p.    100 ; 
Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xiii.  p.  23  ;  Filiasi,  op.  cit.  cap.  xxii. 


26  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

But  Venice  was  no  sooner  relieved  from  a  danger 
threatened  by  her  bishop  and  the  Church  than  she 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  the  opposite  danger 
from  her  doge  relying  on  Byzantium,  whose  triumph 
seemed  secured  by  the  murder  of  Giovanni.  True, 
Venice  would  not  allow  her  patriarchs  to  act  as  agents 
and  procurers  for  the  Church  and  for  the  Franks,  but 
neither  did  she  desire  her  doges  to  become  tyrants 
of  the  state.  The  murder  of  Giovanni  was  an  act 
of  excessive  violence,  and  warned  her  of  that  ever- 
present  menace.  The  sympathy  of  the  people  swerved 
from  the  Galbaij  and  claimed  the  elevation  of  Fortu- 
natus,  nephew  of  the  murdered  patriarch  and  a  man 
of  the  same  political  complexion,  to  the  See  of  Grado, 
as  a  check  to  the  tyrannical  tendency  of  the  doge,  and 
as  an  expiation  for  the  sacrilege  he  had  committed.1 

A  crisis  such  as  that  which  was  agitating  Venice 
could  not  fail  to  produce  men  of  strong  personality. 
Of  all  who  appear  upon  the  scene  at  this  moment, 
none  is  more  remarkable  than  Fortunatus,  the  new 
patriarch  of  Grado.  In  page  after  page  of  that  popu- 
lous chronicle  bequeathed  to  us  by  Andrew  Dandolo, 
we  meet  him  again  and  again — here  borne  high  upon 
some  wave  of  reaction,  there  sunk  deep  in  that 
troublous  sea  of  politics,  but  always  present,  active, 
restless,  intriguing ;  now  at  Venice,  leading  his  party, 
the  party  of  Charles  and  of  the  Church  ;  now  in  exile, 
flying  from  his  country,  hurriedly  crossing  "  the  white 
Alps  alone."  In  Germany,  in  France,  in  Istria,  at 
Constantinople,  we  find  him  ;  anywhere  but  at  Grado 
and  his  episcopal  seat.  He  is  courtier,  merchant, 
virtuoso,  engineer,  and  architect ;  anything  but  pastor 
of  that  quiet  church  among  the  still  lagoons.  Rest- 
lessness, movement,  diplomacy,  were  passions  with 
the  man.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  follow  him 
closely  through  his  journeys  or  his  intrigues;  yet 
around  him  are  grouped  the  chief  actors  and  the 
principal  events  that  contributed  to  the  emergence  of 

1  Dandolo,  cp.  cit.  cap.  xv.  p.  2%  ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  loc.  (fa 


FORTUNATUS  27 

Rialto.  The  intimate  friend  of  Charles  the  Great, 
known  only  too  well  to  the  popes,  dreaded  by 
Nicephorus,  and  counsellor  of  Pipin,  Fortunatus  moves 
about  among  these  great  personages,  the  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  the  spirit  which  was  troubling  them. 

The  appointment  of  Fortunatus  to  the  See  of  Grado 
was  made  in  obedience  to  a  reaction  against  ducal 
tyranny.  His  politics  were  known  to  be  decidedly 
in  favour  of  the  Church  and  the  Franks.  Pope  Leo 
at  once  sent  him  the  pallium  and  his  blessing  on  the 
work  he  should  do  for  the  Holy  See.  That  work  was 
to  carry  on  his  uncle's  course  of  action  ;  to  establish 
and  strengthen  the  party  that  sympathized  with 
Charles ;  to  pave  the  way  for  the  reduction  of  Venice 
as  a  province  of  the  West.  But  Leo  knew  the  shifty 
nature  of  the  man,  and  thought  it  necessary  to  urge 
upon  him  the  duty  of  strenuous  action.  "  Remember,' 
he  writes  to  Fortunatus,  "that  the  place  you  have  now 
undertaken  is  not  a  place  of  rest,  but  of  labour."  1  So 
it  proved  to  the  patriarch — a  place  of  labour,  indeed, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  The  pope,  however 
need  have  felt  no  such  fears.  Fortunatus  had  not 
occupied  his  See  more  than  three  months  when  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  doges  was  discovered  and  stamped 
out.2  The  author  of  the  conspiracy  proved  to  be  the 
patriarch,  who,  relying  on  the  enthusiasm  which  had 
raised  him  to  his  dignity,  concerted  the  measures  of 
the  plot  with  Obelerio,  tribune  of  Malamocco  and  chief 
of  the  democratic  party.  But  the  treason  took  wind. 
Obelerio  and  his  brother  conspirators  retired  to 
Treviso,  while  Fortunatus  experienced  his  first  exodus. 
He  fled  across  the  Alps  to  Charles  the  Great,  whose 
court  he  found  at  Selz.3 

1  See  Ughelli,  Italia  Sacra  (Venetiis :  1720),  torn.  v.  pp.  1075 
et  sey,  for  the  history  of  the  See  of  Grado. 

*  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xv.  p.  26 ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit.  pp. 

IOO-I. 

3  Dandolo,  loc.  cit.  ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  loc.  cit.  ;  Monumenta 
German.  Hist.  edit.  Pertz(Hanov.  :  1826),  torn.  i.  ;  Einhard,  Annales, 
p.  191,  ad  ann.  803 ;  Gfrorer,  op.  cit.  ;  Kretschmayr,  op.  cit.  p.  54. 


28  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

His  reason  for  taking  so  long  a  journey  and  seeking 
such  a  distant  asylum  was  his  hope  to  move  Charles 
to  active  measures  which  should  render  the  donation 
of  solid  effect — to  urge  him  to  undertake  the  reduction 
of  the  lagoons.  Fortunatus  never  showed  himself  less 
than  wholehearted  in  his  service  of  the  Church  and  of 
the  Franks  as  its  ally.  He  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
emperor  many  cogent  arguments.1  Setting  aside  his 
own  faithful  adherence  to  the  cause  of  Charles,  the 
proof  of  which  lay  patent  in  his  exile,  Fortunatus 
dwelt  upon  the  strong  Byzantine  sympathies  of  Venice. 
Here  was  a  small  province  which  the  emperor  claimed 
as  his  own  and  had  given  away  to  his  friend  the  pope ; 
yet  that  province,  so  far  from  acknowledging  the 
Emperor's  authority  or  bowing  to  his  will,  had  expelled 
his  partisans  and  professed  allegiance  to  a  court  which 
scorned  his  imperial  title  and  laughed  at  his  preten- 
sions to  the  lordship  of  Italy.2  But  more  than  that ; 
Fortunatus  insisted  on  the  wisdom  of  subduing  Venice, 
and  so  establishing  a  naval  power  upon  the  Adriatic ; 
for  it  was  through  those  waters  that  Constantinople 
must  be  attacked,  should  Charles  ever  find  the  leisure 
to  prosecute  a  dream  of  his  ambition,  the  union  of  East 
and  West  in  his  own  person.  The  emperor  listened 
to  the  patriarch,  and  the  advice  then  given  bore 
fruit  seven  years  later  in  Pipin's  attack  upon  Venice. 

Fortunatus's  success  at  the  Frankish  court  was  great. 
Charles  not  only  felt  the  political  value  of  the  man  who 
had  made  himself  the  leading  spirit  of  the  anti-Byzantine 
party  at  Venice,  and  indicated  the  importance  of 
Venice  as  a  stepping-stone  to  the  East.  He  also 
grasped  and  appreciated  the  wide  views  of  the  exiled 
patriarch.  The  emperor  was  without  a  fleet,  his 
sea  power  was  virtually  non-existent.  That  is  the 
reason  why  he  had  made  no  effort  to  retain  the  sea- 
board provinces  when  coming  to  terms  with  Nice- 

1  Cod.  Carol,  torn.  ii.  p.  47  ;  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xvi.  p.  3. 
1    See   Baronius,  Annales  Eccles.  cum  crit.  Pagii  (Luca :    I743)> 
torn.  xiii.  p.  379. 


FORTUNATUS  29 

phorus.     He  lacked  the  means  to  hold  them.     Now 
Fortunatus,  with  remarkable  political  and  strategical 
insight,  pointed  out  to  him  the  value  of  the  lagoons 
as  a  basis  for  sea  power  in  the  Adriatic,  and  in  doing 
so  foreshadowed  the  future  destinies  of  the  state  he 
was  endeavouring  to  bring  under  Frankish  dominion. 
Moreover,  Charles  was  conciliated   by  the  presents 
Fortunatus    had    brought   with    him    to    Selz.      The 
emperor's  cathedral  at  Aachen  was  occupying  much 
of    his    attention,    and    the    patriarch's    gifts    came 
most  timely.     They  consisted  of  hangings  of  tapestry 
and  silk,  church  ornaments  in  gold  and  silver,  and, 
above  all,  two  ivory  doors  of  exquisite  workmanship.1 
We  are  curious  to  know  how  the  patriarch  carried  all 
this  heavy  luggage  with  him,  in  his  hurried  flight  over 
almost  pathless   mountains ;   but   here   the  chronicle 
fails  us,  as  on  many  another  point.     In  return  for  his 
treasures  Fortunatus  received   an  imperial  diploma,2 
granting  him  the  full  enjoyment  of  all  his  ecclesiastical 
emoluments  in  Istria  and  the  Romagna,  together  with 
freedom   to  trade  untaxed   in   any  port  of  the  new 
empire.     His    exile,    however,    prevented    him    from 
actually  realizing  the  revenues  of  his  Church,  and  to 
meet   his  present  wants  Charles  made  him  abbot  of 
Moyen    Moutier,3    near    Bordeaux.     The    patriarch's 
treatment  of  his  abbey  was  characteristic  of  the  man. 
He  could  not  endure  to  live  away  from  the  court  and 
active  politics   near  the  person   of  Charles.     Never- 
theless, he  demanded  that  the  whole  income  of  Moyen 
Moutier  should  be  paid  to  him  for  his  private  use ; 
intending  to  let  the  brothers  fare  as  best  they  might, 
while  he  remained  an  absentee.     The  corporation  pro- 
tested.    After  litigation,  appeals,  and  arbitration,  in  all 
of  which  the  restless  spirit  of  Fortunatus  took  a  keen 
delight,  the  matter  was  arranged  by  compromise.     The 

1  Monum.  Germ.  Hist. ;  Einhard,  loc.  cit. 

1  Baronius,  op.  cit.   torn.   xiii.  p.   389  ;    Ughello,   op.   et  loc.  cit.  \ 
Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xvi.  p.  4. 
'  Mabillon,  Annales  Benedictini  (Luca :  1749),  torn.  ii.  p.  316. 


30  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

new  abbot  received  half  the  revenues  of  the  monastery, 
and  remained  at  Charles's  court,  where  we  must  leave 
him  for  the  present. 

When  Fortunatus  concerted  his  measures  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  Galbaij,  he  counted  on  that  reaction 
against  the  doges  which  he  perceived  had  set  in 
after  the  murder  of  the  patriarch  Giovanni.  His  own 
impetuosity  of  spirit,  however,  misled  him ;  he  acted 
too  precipitately,  and  failed.  But  his  failure  did  not 
stay  the  course  of  popular  feeling  in  Venice,  nor 
prove  that  it  was  weak  and  transitory.  Obelerio,  the 
partner  in  the  plot,  who  had  sought  refuge  at  Treviso, 
reaped  the  benefit  of  waiting.  From  his  hiding- 
place  he  continued  his  antagonism  to  the  doges. 
When  it  was  clear  that  hatred  of  the  Galbaij  had 
reached  its  highest  point,  his  party  in  Treviso  elected 
him  doge,  and  he  made  a  sudden  entry  into 
Malamocco,1  his  native  town ;  the  people  welcomed 
him  with  enthusiasm  and  proclaimed  him  Dux. 
The  Galbaij  were  forced  to  fly  from  Venice,  whither 
they  never  returned.  As  a  result  of  Doge  Giovanni's 
high-handed  action  in  murdering  Fortunatus's  uncle, 
and  in  consequence  of  the  apparent  tyranny  of  his 
conduct,  the  state,  forgetful  for  the  moment  of  the 
ever-present  danger  from  the  Church  and  from  the 
Franks,  swept  violently  away  from  Heraclea  and 
Byzantium  into  the  arms  of  Malamocco  and  of 
Charles.  Malamocco,  in  the  person  of  her  tribune, 
Obelerio,  assumed  the  leadership,  and  a  further  step 
towards  the  union  and  fusion  at  Rialto  was  effected. 
For  Obelerio  reigned  as  the  first  Malamoccan,  or 
democratic,  doge.  Heraclea  no  longer  absorbed  the 
governing  functions  ;  they  were  becoming  common  to 
all  inhabitants  of  Venice.  But  stability  was  not  yet 
secured  ;  nor  could  it  be  until  both  Heraclea  and 
Malamocco,  with  all  the  internal  jealousy  and  discord 
which  they  represented,  had  been  still  further  subdued 
and  toned  away. 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xv.  p.  26  ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  loc.  dt. 


DESTRUCTION   OF  HERACLEA  31 

The  political  sympathies  of  the  new  doge  were 
well  known.  There  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
direction  in  which  he  would  endeavour  to  lead  Venice, 
if  allowed  to  work  his  will  freely  and  unrestrained. 
His  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Charles  and  of  the 
Church  admitted  no  question.  But,  by  the  law  which 
was  governing  the  development  of  Venice,  this  very 
outburst  of  popular  feeling,  that  had  raised  Obelerio  to 
the  dukedom  and  given  the  leadership  to  Malamocco, 
implied  a  reaction.  An  undercurrent  of  opposition  to 
the  doge  set  in,  slowly  and  barely  perceptible  at  first, 
but  gaining  power  as  it  went  on.  The  impulse,  how- 
ever, that  had  carried  Obelerio  to  the  head  of  the 
state  was  not  exhausted  by  its  first  effort.  It  still 
possessed  force  enough  to  enable  the  doge  to  accom- 
plish a  deed  personally  grateful  to  himself,  and  in- 
finitely important  in  paving  the  way  for  the  appearance 
of  Rialto  as  the  capital — the  destruction  of  Heraclea. 
The  Heracleans  themselves  supplied  the  pretext  for 
their  own  annihilation.  When  Fortunatus  fled  to 
Charles,  the  nobles  of  that  city  seized  on  some  of  the 
patriarchal  lands  which  lay  along  the  coast.  The 
people  of  Jesolo,  envious  of  this  extension  on  the  part 
of  their  neighbours,  and  under  cover  of  a  pious  wish 
to  restore  to  the  Church  its  due,  attacked  Heraclea, 
and  were  themselves  nearly  destroyed.  In  these 
straits  Jesolo  appealed  to  the  democratic  centre,  to 
Obelerio  and  Malamocco.  The  doge  convened  an 
assembly  which  solemnly  decreed  the  destruction  of 
Heraclea.  The  people  of  Jesolo  and  Malamocco  razed 
the  aristocratic  city  to  the  ground,  and  forcibly  dis- 
tributed its  inhabitants  among  the  other  townships  of 
the  lagoon.1 

The  overthrow  of  Heraclea  marks  the  furthest 
point  attained  by  the  wave  of  popular  feeling  which 

1  Cronaca  Veneta  delta  "  Altinate"  ap.  Archivio  Storico  Italiano 
(Firenz :  1845),  torn.  viii.  lib.  iii.,  with  a  commentary  by  Professor 
Rossi.  The  author  lived  about  A.D.  1210.  Dandolo,  op,  cit.  cap.  xvi. 
p.  10. 


32  THE  CITY   OF   RIALTO 

had  placed  Obelerio  and  the  Prankish  party  in  power. 
Hitherto  Obelerio  had  carried  the  people  with  him. 
But  this  deed  seemed  to  derange  the  balance  in  the 
state.  The  tide  of  sympathy  began  to  recede  from  the 
doge,  and  he  was  left  to  continue  his  course  towards 
Charles  and  the  Franks,  alone.  Each  step  that  he 
took  showed  the  distance  between  himself  and  his 
people  to  be  growing  steadily  greater ;  proved  more 
and  more  clearly  that  ruin  lay  in  his  path.  For  him 
there  was  no  alternative  and  no  hope.  He  may  have 
heard  the  waters  lapsing  behind  him,  and  fore- 
seen that  he  must  be  stranded  and  deserted  before  his 
policy  could  bear  its  fruit ;  yet  to  fall  back  with  the 
tide  was  impossible.  He  could  not  stay  its  inevitable 
sweep  towards  Byzantium  again.  He  might  not  put 
off  the  pre-eminence  he  had  won,  and,  by  sinking 
into  obscurity,  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  opposite 
faction.  Nothing  remained  for  him  but  to  press  on 
towards  an  unattainable  goal,  to  face  the  impossible 
task  of  carrying  his  country  with  him  into  the  arms 
of  Charles. 

When  Fortunatus  heard  of  Obelerio's  success,  and 
of  his  elevation  to  the  dukedom,  he  left  the  court  of 
the  emperor  and  hurried  down  to  Venice.  But  the 
hopes  of  sharing  in  the  victory  of  his  friends  and 
returning  to  his  See  at  Grado  were  not  realized. 
After  the  discovery  of  Fortunatus's  plot,  the 
Galbaij  had  created  a  new  patriarch,  and  Obelerio 
deemed  it  prudent  to  leave  that  appointment  undis- 
turbed. Fortunatus  was  so  restless  an  intriguer,  that 
the  doge  rightly  declined  to  place  him  in  his  See 
again.  Obelerio  felt  that  the  patriarch  would  only  be 
a  source  of  danger  to  his  newly  established  authority, 
and  that  his  presence  would  needlessly  exasperate  the 
defeated  party  of  Byzantium.  So  Fortunatus  received 
no  encouragement  and  no  invitation  to  Malamocco. 
He  wandered  like  an  unquiet  spirit  round  the  borders 
of  the  lagoon  ;  now  at  Campalto  near  Mestre,  now  at 
Torcello ;  always  revolving  some  scheme  for  his 


FORTUNATUS  IN   ISTRIA  33 

return.  Fortune  favoured  him  so  far,  that  one  day 
John  the  Deacon,  Bishop  of  Olivolo,  fell  into  his 
hands,  and  was  carried  prisoner  to  Mestre.1  But, 
while  he  was  considering  the  best  method  of  turning 
this  advantage  to  account,  John  slipped  through  his 
fingers  and  escaped  to  Malamocco.  Fortunatus  saw 
that  his  game  was  ruined  for  the  present.  He  aban- 
doned all  hope  of  recovering  Grado,  and  betook  himself 
to  Istria,  to  make  what  profit  he  could  out  of  the 
privilege  that  had  been  granted  him  by  Charles. 
There  he  established  himself  as  a  merchant,  owning 
four  large  vessels  and  accumulating  a  vast  fortune 
from  the  cargoes  which  they  carried.  Some  of  this 
wealth  he  invested  politically  in  buying  interest  at  the 
Frankish  court,  and  in  securing  connections  among 
the  chiefs  of  the  Dalmatian  seaports  which  still 
belonged  to  the  Eastern  Empire.2  Some,  again,  he 
stored  up  in  works  of  art,  in  silks,  in  hangings,  in 
silver  and  gold  ornaments.  He  filled  the  high  office 
of  imperial  judge,3  and  kept  a  little  court  of  dependents 
about  him.  He  formed  a  company  of  military 
engineers,  for  whom  he  acted  as  impresario,  and  hired 
them  out  to  the  best  bidder.  In  his  capacity  of 
political  agent  for  the  Frankish  emperor  he  endea- 
voured to  sap  the  allegiance  of  the  Dalmatian  towns 
and  to  seduce  them  to  acknowledge  a  dependence  on 
the  Emperor  of  the  West.  Ceaselessly  active,  plotting, 
governing,  amassing  money ;  all  the  while  intent 
upon  his  return  to  Venice  and  to  Grado,  where  his 
heart  really  lay. 

The  bishopric  of  Pola  fell  vacant,  and,  at  the 
request  of  Charles,  Leo  most  reluctantly  conferred 
it  upon  Fortunatus,  stipulating  that  should  he  ever 
recover  his  patriarchal  See,  he  should  relinquish 

1  Ughelli,  loc.  cit. ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit.  p.  102 ;  Dandolo, 
op.  cit.  cap.  xvi.  p.  14. 

*  By  the  treaty  of  802,  between  Charles  and  Nicephorus.  See 
Filiasi,  op.  cit.  cdp.  xxii. 

3  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xvi.  p.  8. 

VOL.    I.  3 


34  THE   CITY   OF   RIALTO 

that  of  Pola,  with  all  its  emoluments.  The  pope 
dreaded  Fortunatus's  rapacity.  In  a  letter  to  Charles 
he  begged  the  emperor  to  be  moderate  in  his  favours 
to  the  patriarch.  "  I  pray  you,"  he  says,  "  while  you 
are  labouring  for  the  temporal  well-being  of  this 
man,  think  of  his  immortal  soul ;  that  through  the 
fear  of  you  he  may  the  better  fulfil  his  ministry.  For 
we  have  heard  no  good  report  of  him,  such  as  becomes 
an  archbishop,  neither  from  these  parts,  nor  yet  from 
France,  where  you  have  lent  him  such  powerful 
support.  But,  thank  God,  all  is  not  unknown  to 
you.  Ask  men  whom  you  can  trust;  for  those  who 
praise  him  to  you  do  so  for  a  purpose  and  bought 
thereto."1  Charles,  however,  still  remained  the 
patriarch's  firm  friend,  and  Fortunatus  still  retained 
sufficient  weight  to  influence  Venice  and  the  Adriatic. 
He  may  possibly  have  been  the  cause  of  that  explosion 
which  ruined  Heraclea.  In  any  case,  he  heard  of 
it  in  Istria  and  rejoiced  over  the  triumph  of  his 
friends.  Its  importance  to  him  proved  great.  For 
Obelerio  now  believed  himself  strong  enough  to  invite 
the  patriarch  to  return  to  Grado.  He  hoped  that  the 
reappearance  of  Fortunatus  in  his  See  would  add  life 
and  vigour  to  that  party,  whose  victory  he  deemed 
secure  upon  the  wreck  of  Heraclea. 

But  reaction  was  active  in  the  air  of  Venice,  and 
the  presence  of  Fortunatus  only  served  to  stimulate  it. 
Obelerio  had  steadily  pursued  his  Frankish  policy, 
and  as  steadily  the  temper  of  the  people  set  against 
Charles  and  towards  Byzantium  once  more.  The 
conduct  of  their  doge  offered  a  continual  subject  for 
alarm  ;  and  the  growing  power  of  the  Franks,  the 
consolidation  of  Pipin's  kingdom  in  Italy,  all  tended 
to  heighten  that  sentiment.  Obelerio  married  a 
Frankish  wife ;  and,  still  further  to  parade  his  union 
with  the  conquerors,  in  the  year  806  he  left  his 
capital  to  attend  the  court  of  Charles.  While  there 
he  received,  with  all  the  submission  of  a  subject, 
1  Cod.  Carol,  torn,  ii,  p.  47. 


ACTIVE  INTERVENTION  OF  BYZANTIUM     35 

instructions  as  to  the  government  and  policy  of 
Venice.1  The  Venetians  could  not  accept  in  quiet  the 
position  of  dependence  which  Obelerio  designed  for 
them.  It  seemed  to  them  that  their  doge  proposed 
to  make  Venice  a  fief  of  the  Western  Empire.  The 
people  felt  that  their  ruler  had  proved  once  more 
unfaithful  to  the  permanent  aspirations  of  his  race. 
The  pressure  upon  them  was  becoming  severe.  Their 
doge  and  their  patriarch  acted  no  longer  as  checks 
'and  counterpoises  to  each  other;  on  the  contrary, 
they  were  at  one,  and  both  were  working  towards 
a  consummation  to  which  the  whole  instincts  of 
the  people  were  opposed.  The  ferment  of  popular 
feeling  manifested  itself  in  a  revolution  against 
Obelerio  and  his  party.2  The  Doge,  however,  was 
still  strong  enough  to  retain  his  hold  upon  the 
reins  of  government.  The  presentiment  of  the  final 
crisis,  which  was  clearly  now  approaching,  accen- 
tuated all  political  passions,  and  while  it  raised  a 
violent  opposition  to  the  doge,  it  forbade  any  one 
to  stand  aside,  and  confirmed  all  those  who  had 
originally  held  with  Obelerio.  The  revolution  failed 
in  its  object. 

Hitherto  the  Empire  of  the  East  had  hardly  been 
an  active  agent  in  the  development  of  Venice. 
Byzantium  had  not  interfered  directly  with  the  politics 
of  the  lagoons.  But  the  idea  of  the  great  Roman 
Empire  was  ever  present  to  the  imagination  of  the 
people — a  rock  to  which  they  could  cling  for  support 
in  any  reaction  against  aggression  from  the  West. 
Now,  however,  East  and  West  were  about  to  clash 
over  Venice.  Byzantium  began  to  be  an  active  factor 

1  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.  torn.  i.  p.  193;  Einhard,  ad  ann.  806;  Cod. 
DLL  alia  Marciana  ap.  Romanin.  op.  cit.  cap.  iv.  Chronicon  Regi- 
nonis,  ap.  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.  loc.  cit.  p.  558.  The  Martian  manu- 
script says,  "  De  Obelerio  alii  scripserunt  quo  turn  Gallicam  quidem 
nobilem  haberet  uxorem,  promissionibus  allectis  ad  regem  perexit 
offerens  dominium  sibi  contradere." 

%  Chronicon  Reginonis^  loc.  cit. 


36  THE  CITY   OF  RIALTO 

in  the  movement  of  Venetian  politics.  The  causes 
which  immediately  led  to  the  awakening  of  the  East 
were  due  to  Fortunatus's  conduct  while  an  exile  in 
Istria.  His  intrigues  among  the  Dalmatian  towns  had 
resulted  in  the  creation  of  a  party  favourably  inclined 
towards  Charles.  The  loyalty  of  the  Dalmatian  sea- 
ports was  seriously  shaken.  Their  attitude  alarmed 
Nicephorus,  the  Emperor  of  the  East ;  for  at  this 
moment  the  whole  Italian  policy  of  the  Franks  pointed 
to  their  desire  to  establish  a  fleet  in  the  Adriatic. 
Nicephorus  was  a  man  of  vigorous  character,  an  able 
financier,  and  a  brave,  though  unsuccessful,  soldier. 
He  had  deposed  Irene,  and  ascended  the  throne  as  the 
professed  defender  of  the  imperial  majesty  against  the 
new-fangled  Empire  of  the  West.  It  was  therefore 
impossible  for  Nicephorus  to  neglect  the  ominous 
signs  along  the  Dalmatian  coast.  He  despatched  the 
patrician  Nicetas  to  the  Adriatic  with  the  imperial 
fleet,  and  Venice,  as  a  vassal  of  the  East,  received  a 
summons  to  furnish  a  contingent.1  Obelerio  would 
gladly  have  refused  ;  but  the  Franks,  his  allies,  were 
not  prepared  to  support  him  at  the  moment,  and  the 
temper  of  the  people  he  governed  had  been  steadily 
setting  towards  Byzantium  ever  since  the  fall  of 
Heraclea.  The  Venetian  squadron  joined  the  fleet 
under  the  command  of  Nicetas,  and,  after  awing  the 
Dalmatian  towns,  the  patrician  sailed  to  Venice.  The 
policy  of  Obelerio  an;d  of  Fortunatus,  their  intentions 
and  actions  as  regards  Venice  and  Dalmatia,  were 
well  known  to  the  Eastern  court.  Nicetas  had  been 
instructed  to  destroy  their  authority  and  to  exact 
guarantees  for  the  loyalty  of  the  lagoons.  The 
patriarch  did  not  wait  his  coming,  but  fled  again  to 
Charles.  An  assembly  convened  by  Nicetas  declared 
his  See  vacant  and  himself  an  outlaw.  The  patrician 
sailed  to  Constantinople,  taking  with  him  Beato, 

1  Mon.  Germ.  Hist. ;  Einhard,  loc.  cit.  ;  Finlay,  op.  cit.  ;  Filiasi, 
op.  cit.  cap.  xxiii.  ;  Romanin,  op.  cit.  cap.  ix.  ;  Dandolo,  op.  cit. 
cap.  xvi.  p.  1 6. 


VENICE  BETWEEN   EAST  AND  WEST   37 

Obelerio's   brother,  as  hostage  for  the  doge's  future 
conduct.1 

The  crisis  for  Venice  was  evidently  approaching. 
Both  East  and  West  were  beginning  to  put  the 
question  whose  she  meant  to  be ;  nor  would  they 
wait  long  for  an  answer.  It  would  soon  become 
impossible  for  Venice  any  further  to  conceal  her  hand, 
to  continue  that  outward  play  between  the  policy  of 
loyalty  to  the  East  and  obedience  to  the  West,  while 
inwardly  pursuing  the  problem  of  her  own  individual 
preservation.  Inside  Venice  the  respective  power  of 
the  Frank  and  Byzantine  factions  had  not  yet  been 
fairly  tested.  In  the  scene  which  had  just  been 
enacted  under  the  guidance  of  Nicetas,  the  presence 
of  the  imperial  fleet  and  the  absence  of  the  Franks 
had  terrified  the  followers  of  Obelerio  into  silence. 
But  the  doge  declined  to  accept  the  action  of  Venice 
as  a  proof  that  his  policy  had  lost  the  support  of 
the  people.  He  believed  that  the  balance  yet  hung 
undetermined. 

The  question  of  their  allegiance  was  again  put  to 
the  Venetians  the  following  year,  and  this  time  in 
more  categorical  form,  requiring  a  more  decisive 
answer.  The  result  proved  Obelerio's  supposition  to 
be  correct ;  the  balance  had  not  yet  finally  dipped 
towards  Byzantium  and  against  Charles.  The  doge, 
living  in  the  heat  of  the  struggle,  could  not  see  that 
the  conduct  of  Venice  was  in  reality  predetermined 
by  the  weakness  of  the  East  and  the  greater  proximity 
of  the  Franks.  He  was  not  aware  that  the  people, 
always  bent  on  independence,  would  certainly  declare 
their  allegiance  to  that  power  which  was  least  able  to 
enforce  it.  Nicephorus  again  sent  the  imperial  fleet 
into  the  Adriatic 2 ;  this  time  for  the  purpose  of 
recovering  Comacchio  and  the  exarchate,  in  retaliation 
for  Fortunatus's  attempt  to  seduce  the  Dalmatian 

1  Einhard,  op.    cit.   p.   194  ;   Giovanni    Diacono,   op.    cit.  p.  103  ; 
Dandolo,  loc.  cit.  p.  18. 

3  Einhard,  op.  cit.  p.  196  ;  Romanin,  loc.  cit. 


38  THE  CITY  OF   RIALTO 

towns.  Venice  again  received  orders  to  furnish  a 
contingent  to  the  admiral  Paul.  To  obey  meant  war 
on  Pipin ;  to  refuse  meant  defiance  to  Nicephorus. 
The  critical  moment  for  the  future  of  Venice  was  at 
hand ;  while  for  the  present  either  course  was  danger- 
ous, perhaps  fatal.  A  decided  step  either  way  would 
at  least  have  secured  to  the  Venetians  an  ally,  Frank 
or  Byzantine.  But  the  balance  of  parties  prevented 
the  state  from  taking  any  positive  line  of  action.  Out 
of  three  possible  issues,  Venice  pursued  the  most 
perilous,  and  by  her  conduct  she  severed  herself  both 
from  East  and  West.  The  result,  however,  proved 
fortunate,  for  it  threw  the  state  upon  its  own  resources, 
and  compelled  Venice  eventually  to  save  herself  by 
her  own  unaided  energy.  The  party  opposed  to 
Obelerio  forced  the  doge  to  supply  the  contingent  to 
Paul's  fleet.  The  expedition  sailed  to  Comacchio  and 
was  defeated.  This  check  roused  the  spirits  of  the 
Frankish  faction ;  and  when  Paul  returned  with  the 
remnants  of  his  squadron  to  Venice,  he  encountered 
determined  opposition.  Obstacles  were  thrown  in 
the  way  of  his  signing  a  treaty  with  Pipin,  and  his 
life  was  in  such  danger  that  he  found  himself  obliged 
to  fly.1  This,  then,  was  the  result  of  the  momentary 
balance  between  parties  in  Venice,  apparently  dis- 
astrous, but  really  propitious  for  the  aspirations  of 
the  people.  Pipin  was  now  their  enemy,  for  they  had 
fought  against  him  at  Comacchio ;  Nicephorus  had 
been  alienated  by  the  insults  offered  to  his  admiral  Paul. 
Venice  was  face  to  face  with  the  decisive  moment. 

Pipin  did  not  long  delay  his  action.2  The  advice 
given  by  Fortunatus  seven  years  before,  when  he  was 
at  the  court  of  Charles,  had  fallen  on  no  unfruitful 
soil.  The  son  of  Charles  was  young,  vigorous, 
courageous,  eager  to  increase  and  consolidate  his 
kingdom  of  Italy.  The  reduction  of  the  lagoons 
offered  an  enterprise  at  once  productive  and  glorious. 

1  Einhard,  op.  cit.  p.  196  ;  Filiasi,  loc.  cit. 
*  Dandolo,  op.  cit,  cap.  xvi.  p.  23. 


VENICE   REJECTS  THE  FRANKS         39 

The  affair  of  Comacchio  determined  him  to  subdue 
those  islanders  who  so  stubbornly  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge his  sovereignty.  But  first  his  policy  required 
the  reduction  of  Dalmatia.  He  sent  to  ask  Venice 
to  join  him  in  the  undertaking.1  For  Venice  there 
could  be  now  no  rest,  no  quiet,  no  standing  aside. 
The  forces  which  were  determining  her  formation 
required  this  repeated  and  intensified  pressure;  she 
had  reached  the  moment  of  fusion  and  fiery  heat 
which  precedes  crystallization.  Obelerio  exerted 
every  power  at  his  disposal  to  induce  his  compatriots 
to  accept  the  offered  alliance  with  the  king.  He  urged 
that  the  state  could  look  for  nothing  from  Nicephorus; 
that  here  was  presented  an  opportunity  to  repair  the 
error  of  the  previous  year,  an  occasion  to  obliterate 
animosity  and  secure  safety  by  union  with  the 
Franks.  But  the  instincts  of  the  people  told  them 
that  salvation  lay  only  in  their  own  exertion,  not  in 
reliance  on  the  power  of  any  prince.  The  wave  of 
reaction  set  in  motion  by  the  overthrow  of  Heraclea 
had  gathered  volume  enough  to  claim  its  way.  The 
Venetians  declined  to  follow  Obelerio;  he  found 
himself  stranded  and  alone,  the  ruler  of  a  people 
who  refused  to  obey. 

Venice  rejected  Pipin's  invitation,  and  prepared 
to  defend  herself,  trusting  to  no  other  aid  than  the 
courage  of  her  men  and  the  intricacy  of  her  lagoon 
channels.  The  king  made  ready  for  an  immediate 
attack.  His  fleet  lay  at  Ravenna,  and  in  Friuli  an 
army  was  at  his  disposal.  From  north  and  south  he 
could  concentrate  his  forces  upon  Venice.  Victory 
seemed  easy  to  him.  But  he  left  out  of  his  calculation 
the  natural  defences  of  those  sea-born  townships ;  he 
did  not  know  the  shoals  and  deeps  of  their  sea  home. 
By  the  advice  of  Angelo  Particiaco,  a  Heraclean 
noble,  who  assumed  the  lead  as  Obelerio's  influence 
waned,  the  people  removed  their  wives,  their  children, 
and  their  goods  from  Malamocco  to  a  little  island  in 

1  Romanin,  loc.  tit. 


40  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

the  mid  lagoon,  Rialto,  inaccessible  by  land  or  sea. 
The  fighting  men  took  up  their  post  at  Albiola,  now 
Porto  Secco,  a  village  between  Pelestrina  and  the 
port  of  Malamocco.  There  they  awaited  the  attack 
of  the  Franks.  Pipin  seized  on  Brondolo,  Chioggia, 
and  Pelestrina.  He  endeavoured  to  press  his  squad- 
rons on  towards  the  capital,  but  the  shoals  opposed 
him.  His  vessels  ran  aground ;  his  pilots  missed  the 
channels ;  the  Venetians  from  the  further  shore  plied 
him  with  darts  and  stones.  He  could  not  force  a 
passage  to  Malamocco,  and  even  then  Rialto  was 
not  reached ;  it  lay  in  view,  but  far  away  across  six 
miles  of  winding  canals  and  undiscovered  banks. 
For  six  months,  through  the  winter  of  809-810,  Pipin 
and  his  Frankish  chivalry  wasted  their  energy  in  the 
struggle  to  advance.  At  length  the  summer  heats 
drew  on,  and  rumours  of  the  approach  of  an  Eastern 
fleet  warned  Pipin  of  his  failure.1  He  ventured  on 
one  last  appeal.  "  Own  yourselves  my  subjects,"  he 
cried  to  the  Venetians,  "  for  are  you  not  within  the 
borders  of  my  kingdom  ? "  "  No  !  we  are  resolved 
to  be  the  subjects  of  the  Roman  emperor,  and  not  of 
you." 2  The  king  was  forced  to  retire.  He  signed  a 
treaty  with  the  townships  of  the  lagoons,  whereby 
they  consented  to  pay  the  nominal  tribute  formerly 
due  to  the  Lombard  kings,  whose  heir  Pipin  claimed 
to  be.  The  debt  was  never  discharged.  Pipin  left 
Venice  filled  with  the  bitterest  mortification,  and  died 
the  same  year  at  Milan.3 

1  Our  most  trustworthy  authorities  for  this  episode  of  Pipin's 
attack  are  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit.  p.  104,  and  Constantine 
Porphyrog.  De  Adminis.  Imp.  cap.  xxviii.  They  are  both  of  the 
following  century.  Einhard,  a  contemporary,  is  suspect  through  his 
Frankish  sympathies  and  the  manner  in  which  he  hurries  over 
the  event.  The  later  Venetian  historians,  including  Dandolo,  are 
anxious  to  magnify  the  victory,  and  fill  their  accounts  with  legends 
and  myths. 

*  "  WTO  rr/v  (prjv  X€*P°  *a'  Tpovoiav  ylvtaQt  «m8q  drro  rr^s  f^s  ^wpur  Kal 
(£ov<rias  tare."     "  f]fjLfis  8ov\oi  6t\op.fv  (ivai  TOV  /3acrtAea>y  T£>V  ' 
Kai  oi/xi  crov  "  (Constantine,  loc.  cit). 

3  Einhard,  op.  cit.  p.  197. 


THE  FUSION  AT  RIALTO  41 

Venice  emerged  from  the  crisis  an  independent  state. 
She  had  attained  the  object  of  her  long  desire.  By- 
zantium owed  her  a  deep  debt  for  having  checked 
the  progress  of  the  Frankish  arms  eastward.  The 
empire  of  the  West  would  trouble  her  no  more.  The 
struggle  and  the  victory  completed  her  spiritual  self- 
consciousness  and  the  union  of  her  various  parts. 
Venice  was  homogeneous  now,  a  whole,  undivided, 
liberated  from  internal  discord,  and  at  peace.  And 
not  only  was  there  fusion  between  her  rival  elements, 
but  her  people  also  became  one  with  the  place  of 
their  habitation.  Venetian  men  and  Venetian  lagoons 
had  made  and  saved  the  state.  The  spirit  of  the 
waters,  free,  vigorous,  and  pungent,  had  passed  in 
that  stern  moment  of  trial  into  the  being  of  the 
men  who  dwelt  upon  them  ;  now  the  men  were  about 
to  impose  something  of  their  spirit  too,  and  build  that 
incomparatively  lovely  city  of  the  sea.  Venice,  in  this 
union  of  the  people  and  the  place,  declared  the  nature 
of  her  personality  ;  a  personality  so  infinitely  various, 
so  rich,  so  pliant,  and  so  free,  that  to  this  day  she 
wakens,  and  in  a  measure  satisfies,  a  passion  such  as 
we  feel  for  some  life  deeply  beloved. 

The  island  of  Rialto  had  proved  the  advantage  of 
its  situation,  and  established  a  claim  for  gratitude  as 
the  asylum  of  Venice  in  her  hour  of  need.  The  raids 
of  Attila  demonstrated  the  insecurity  of  the  mainland  ; 
the  attack  of  Pipin  showed  that  the  sea-coast  was 
not  more  safe.  Experience  led  to  the  final  choice  of 
this  middle  point.  In  the  year  813  the  seat  of  the 
government  was  removed  to  Rialto,  under  Angelo 
Particiaco  as  doge.1  Rialto  became  the  capital  of 
Venice — a  city  of  compromise  between  the  perils  of 
terra-firma  and  the  banishment  of  the  extreme  lidi. 
Malamocco  had  destroyed  Heraclea;  she  now  re- 
nounced her  supremacy  in  favour  of  Rialto,  founded 
by  a  noble  of  the  city  she  had  ruined.  Rialto  became 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  lib.  viii.  cap.  i.  p.  I  j  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit. 
p.  106, 


42  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

as  it  were  a  sacrament  of  reconciliation  between 
Heraclea  and  Malamocco.  Venice,  battling  blindly 
inside  herself  to  win  her  freedom,  found  herself  and 
achieved  a  unity  with  qualities  which  belong  to  her 
alone.  It  was  the  singular  glory  of  Venice  that,  of 
all  Italy,  she  alone  remained  unscathed  alike  by  the 
foreign  ravages  of  the  fifth  century  and  the  conquest 
of  the  eighth.  The  seed  sown  during  the  incursions 
of  Attila  bore  fruit,  and  came  to  the  birth  when  the 
Franks  overthrew  the  Lombard  kingdom.  Venice 
was  the  virgin  child  of  Italy's  ruin ;  conceived  in  the 
midst  of  anguish  and  distress,  born  to  the  very 
manner  of  invasion,  and  from  invasion  she  alone 
escaped,  pure  and  undefiled.  The  achievement  of 
Venice,  the  repulse  of  the  Franks  and  the  creation 
of  herself,  requires  the  embellishment  of  no  fables 
to  render  it  more  glorious ;  yet  we  cannot  wonder 
that  the  Venetians  have  loved  to  gather  round  this 
central  victory  a  whole  mythology  of  persons  and 
events.  The  cannon-balls  of  bread,  fired  into  the 
Frankish  camp  in  mockery  of  Pipin's  hopes  to  starve 
Rialto  to  surrender ;  the  old  woman,  king  of  council 
(rex  consilii),  who  lured  the  invader  to  that  fatal  effort, 
the  bridge  across  the  lagoon,  where  half  his  forces 
were  lost ;  the  Canal  Orfano,  that  ran  with  foreign 
blood  and  won  its  name  from  countless  Frankish 
homes  that  day  made  desolate ;  above  all,  the  sword 
of  Charles,  flung  far  into  the  sea  when  the  great 
emperor  acknowledged  his  repulse  and  cried,  "  As 
this,  my  brand,  sinks  out  of  sight,  nor  ever  shall  rise 
again,  so  let  all  thought  to  conquer  Venice  sink  from 
out  men's  hearts,  or  they  will  feel,  as  I  have  felt,  the 
heavy  displeasure  of  God;"1 — all  these  are  myths, 
born  of  a  pardonable  pride ;  but  Venice  still  remains 
her  own  most  splendid  monument. 
The  limit  of  this  essay  has  been  reached.  Its 

1  See  Sanudo,  Vite  dei  Duchi,  ap.  Murat.  Rer.  It.  Script,  torn.  xxii. ; 
Cronaca  Veneta  da  Canale,  ap.  Archiv.  St.  It.  torn.  viii.  par.  7  ; 
Cron.  Altinatet  bk.  viii.  p.  219  ;  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  cap.  xvi.  p.  23. 


THE  END  OF  FORTUNATUS  43 

course  has  shown  the  impulse  of  federal  Venetia 
effecting  itself  in  the  creation  of  Rialto.  Yet  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  come  to  a  full-stop  without  a  word 
about  two  principal  actors  in  the  drama,  Fortunatus 
and  Obelerio.  Venice  had  attained  to  rest ;  for  these 
two  restless  souls  there  was  no  longer  any  place  in 
her.  Their  mission  was  fulfilled,  their  epoch  passed 
them  by,  and  they  had  not  been  blessed  in  dying 
with  it.  They  were  not  born,  but  they  had  the  equal 
misery  to  survive,  out  of  due  season.  The  doge  faded 
out  of  Venetian  politics  from  the  moment  when  he 
failed  to  carry  the  people  with  him  to  an  alliance  with 
Pipin.  The  victory  of  the  Venetians  and  the  creation 
of  the  new  capital  were  achieved  under  the  auspices  of 
a  Byzantine  reaction  and  the  guidance  of  a  Heraclean 
noble.  A  nuncio  from  the  court  of  Constantinople 
formally  deposed  Obelerio,  and  banished  him.1  From 
his  place  of  exile  he  yearned  ever  towards  his  native 
waters,  and  nursed  delusive  hopes  of  restoration.  But 
his  influence  died  when  he  was  deposed.  He  made 
one  fruitless  descent  on  Malamocco,  hoping  to  waken 
the  city  by  the  outworn  cry  of  democracy  and  hatred 
of  Heraclea,  still  vital  in  the  person  of  the  Doge 
Particiaco.  He  failed  miserably.  Party  feuds  and 
watchwords  were  old  and  meaningless  for  the 
Venetians  now,  merged  in  the  new  fact  of  Rialto. 
Particiaco  dispersed  the  handful  of  revolutionists, 
and  Obelerio  forfeited  his  head.  With  him  the  last 
sparks  of  Malamoccan  supremacy  were  quenched 
for  ever. 

Fortunatus,  who  had  fled  before  the  presence  ot 
Nicetas  and  the  imperial  fleet,  returned  to  Grado  for 
a  brief  space  under  the  wing  of  Pipin  and  the  Franks. 
But  the  king's  repulse  warned  the  patriarch  not  to  try 
the  temper  of  the  victorious  Byzantine  party.  For  the 
third  time  he  quitted  his  little  island  for  the  Frankish 
court.  When  Angelo  Particiaco  had  established  the 

1  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  lib.  vii.  cap.  xvi.  p.  24  ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit. 
p.  105. 


44  THE  CITY  OF  RIALTO 

government  securely  in  Rialto,  Fortunatus  applied  for 
a  safe  conduct  and  permission  to  return.  The  doge 
believed  that  now,  at  least,  there  could  be  no  more 
danger  from  the  patriarch's  Frankizing  policy,  and 
permission  was  granted. 

Fortunatus  came  back  to  Grado,  and,  at  first, 
devoted  himself  with  his  wonted  vigour  to  the 
adornment  of  his  church  and  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  episcopal  lands.  We  hear  of  him  at  Grado,  a 
small  //afo-island,  like  Torcello  as  we  know  it  now, 
with  a  large  brick  church,  and  solid,  square  cam- 
panile shining  rather  redly  across  the  waters.  A 
few  straggling,  low  brick  houses,  a  winding  canal, 
and  banks  trailing  with  creepers  in  spring,  over 
the  tops  of  which  rise  the  dusky  red-tipped  leaves  of 
the  young  pomegranate  trees,  or  blazing  in  autumn 
with  the  endlessly  varied  crimsons  of  the  dying 
tamarisk  and  sea-lavender.  Behind  Grado  the  hills 
rise  in  the  distance — sharp  dolomite  peaks  that  catch 
the  sunset  lights  and  flame  rosily  across  the  grey 
lagoon.  Between  the  shore  and  the  hills  the  country 
is  first  heavy  marshland,  then  comes  a  tract  all  broken 
and  rough  with  limestone  rocks  cropping  out  every- 
where, so  rugged  and  untilled  that  there  is  just 
sufficient  herbage  to  pasture  some  flocks  of  thin 
and  meagre  sheep.  The  land  is  scarred  with  white 
boulders,  the  rubbish  of  stony  desolation  swept  down 
from  the  mountains  every  spring  by  the  Tagliamento 
and  the  Isonzo. 

Here,  then,  Fortunatus  busied  himself  with  the 
masons  whom  he  called  from  France  l ;  pouring  out 
the  treasures  he  had  amassed  in  Istria,  importing 
precious  marbles  for  his  church's  fagade,  for  the 
colonnades  and  porticos ;  filling  his  cathedral  with 
altars  of  gold,  altars  of  silver,  pictures,  purple  hang- 
ings, tapestries,  carpets,  panni  d'oro,  jewels,  crowns, 

1  "  Feci  venire  magistros  di  Francia  "  (Fortunatus's  will,  ap.  Haalitt, 
op.  cit.  Doc.  II.,  and  Marin,  Storia  Civile  e  Politico,  del  Commercio 
d,  Venez  (Venezia :  1798),  torn.  i.  cap.  vii.). 


THE  END  OF  FORTUNATUS  45 

"  the  like  of  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  all  Italy," 
chandeliers  of  rare  workmanship  with  branching 
lights.  And  the  bishop  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
growing  magnificence,  superintending  the  builders, 
laying  the  beams,  designing  the  patterns  for  the 
inlaid  stones.  The  care  of  his  church  was  not  enough 
to  occupy  him.  Agriculture,  too,  claimed  a  share  of 
his  inordinate  activity,  and  at  San  Pelegrino  he 
established  a  stud  farm  for  the  breeding  of  horses.1 
It  would  have  been  well  for  him  if  he  had  rested 
there.  But  he  could  not  keep  his  mind  from  political 
intrigue ;  a  demon  of  restlessness  pursued  him  to  the 
end.  He  thought  that  the  Frankish  party  might  still 
be  revived  in  Venice ;  he,  at  least,  never  despaired  of 
final  success.  The  Venetians  more  than  suspected 
his  influence  in  the  family  feuds  which  tore  the  house- 
hold of  the  doge  in  two,  and  drove  his  younger  son, 
Giovanni,  into  exile.2  The  presence  of  Fortunatus 
was  a  never-failing  source  of  disquiet  to  the  whole 
of  Venice.  At  length  a  plot  against  the  life  of  Angelo 
Particiaco  himself  roused  the  extreme  wrath  of  the 
people.  The  plot  clearly  had  its  origin  among  the 
broken  fragments  of  the  Frankish  party,  and  as  surely 
Fortunatus  was  its  prime  instigator.  The  Venetians 
deposed,  and  for  the  last  time  expelled  the  patriarch 
from  his  See.3  His  own  passion  for  intrigue,  his  own 
inability  to  perceive  that  Venice  had  taken  a  new 
direction  when  Rialto  rose  to  be  the  capital,  that  the  old 
formulae  of  Frank  or  Byzantine  had  little  import  now, 
were  the  causes  of  Fortunatus's  ruin.  He  passed  from 
the  sphere  of  Venetian  politics,  where  he  had  played 
so  active  and  so  perilous  a  part,  into  a  region  of 
obscurity  whither  we  can  hardly  follow  him.  Hence- 
forth he  ceased  to  exercise  any  considerable  influence 
on  Venetian  affairs.  His  name  appears  less  and  less 

1  See  Filiasi,  op.  cit.  torn.  vi.  cap.  i. 

9  Dandolo,  op.  cit.  lib.  viii.  cap.  i.  p.  17  ;  Giovanni  Diacono,  op.  cit. 
p.  107. 

3  Dandolo,  loc.  cit-  p.  35. 


46  THE  CITY  OF   RIALTO 

frequently  in  the  chronicles ;  yet  we  may  be  sure  he 
was  not  quiet  nor  at  rest.  Whenever  he  does  appear, 
it  is  always  in  connection  with  some  plot  or  some 
intrigue,  each  scheme  wilder  and  more  hopeless  than 
its  predecessor,  as  the  patriarch's  authority  dwindled, 
as  his  strength  failed,  as  he  sank  surely  down  the 
decline  of  a  life  that  had  been  so  full  and  yet  so 
fruitless. 

On  his  expulsion  from  the  lagoons,  Fortunatus 
crossed  to  Dalmatia,  where  he  had  already  secured 
connections,  and  applied  himself  to  establishing 
these  upon  a  firmer  basis.  His  friend  Charles  had 
died  in  the  year  813,  and  the  patriarch  could  look 
for  little  help  from  the  Frankish  court,  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  feuds  of  the  great  emperor's  successors.  He 
turned  to  seek  for  aid  from  Constantinople,  from  that 
court  whose  persistent  enemy  he  had  always  shown 
himself.  His  personal  policy  wavered  ominously  ;  the 
power  had  gone  out  of  the  man.  He  sought  to  gain 
the  favour  of  Byzantium,  under  whose  influence  he 
hoped  to  be  restored  to  Grado.  With  that  object  in 
view,  he  applied  himself  to  harass  the  Emperor  Lewis, 
as  far  as  in  him  lay.  He  sent  into  the  service  of  the 
rebel  duke  of  Pannonia  that  band  of  military  engineers 
which  he  had  raised  in  Istria,1  and  thus  materially 
assisted  the  duke  in  fortifying  his  country.  For  this 
conduct  Lewis  cited  the  patriarch  to  the  Frankish 
court  Fortunatus  feigned  obedience  and  set  out ;  but 
on  the  way  he  turned  aside  and  fled  to  Zara,  whence 
he  took  ship  for  Constantinople.2  There  he  remained 
three  years,  labouring,  we  may  believe,  to  secure  sup- 
port ;  but  in  vain,  as  the  sequel  proved.  In  the  year 
824  he  left  the  capital  in  the  train  of  an  embassy  sent 
to  treat  with  the  Emperor  of  the  West.  He  trusted 
that  his  case  would  be  mentioned  among  other  points, 
and  that  so,  at  peace  with  East  and  West,  he  might 

1  Einhard,   op.   cit.  p.  208,  ap.  ann.  821,  "artifices  et  muriarios 
mittendo." 
1  Mabillon,  op.  cit.  torn.  ii.  p.  458  ;  Einhard,  loc.  cit. 


THE  END  OF  FORTUNATUS  47 

return  to  Grado,  for  which  he  never  ceased  to  long. 
But  Lewis  refused  to  pardon  or  to  listen  to  him.  The 
ambassadors  declined  to  jeopardize  the  success  of  their 
mission  by  any  unwelcome  proviso  in  favour  of  For- 
tunatus ;  they  repudiated  and  ignored  him.  Lewis 
ordered  him  to  Rome,  under  a  kind  of  arrest,  there 
to  answer  before  the  pope  for  his  share  in  the  Pan- 
nonian  revolt.1  Fortunatus  began  his  journey,  but 
never  accomplished  it.  He  died  upon  the  way,  a 
broken  and  a  failing  man ;  a  restless  end  to  a  restless 
life.  His  last  thoughts  were  turned,  with  that  in- 
domitable hope  of  his,  to  the  quiet  church  among 
the  lagoons,  whose  bishop  he  had  been  for  so  many 
unquiet  years.  The  closing  words  of  his  will,  be- 
queathing his  vast  fortune  to  his  See,  have  an  almost 
pathetic  ring  when  we  remember  all  the  failure  of  his 
career,  the  hope  against  hope  deferred  :  "  I  will  pay 
my  debts  before  God,"  he  writes ;  "  and  so  it  shall  be 
when  I  am  come  back  to  my  own  Holy  Church,  in 
peace  and  tranquillity  I  will  rejoice  with  you  all  the 
days  of  my  life." 

1  Einhard,  op.  cit.  p.  212,  ad.  ann.  824  ;  Dandolo,  loc.  cit.  p.  36. 


Bajamonte  Tiepolo  and  the  Closing  of  the 
Great  Council 

AMONG  the  many  memorial  stones  of  Venice,  there 
is  one  likely  enough  to  escape  notice.  It  is  a  little 
square  of  white  marble,  let  into  the  pavement  of  the 
Campo  Sant'  Agostino ;  and  on  it  are  these  letters : 
"LOG.  COL.  BAI.  TIE.  MCCCX."  Right  in  the  heart  of 
Venice,  between  the  Frari  and  Campo  San  Polo,  the 
feet  of  strangers  rarely  bring  them  by  it.  Yet  the 
events  commemorated  by  this  stone  are  among  the 
most  important  in  the-  constitutional  growth  of 
the  city.  The  slab  marks  the  place  of  the  colonna 
cTinfamia  which  used  to  stand  on  the  site  of  Bajamonte 
Tiepolo's  house  to  perpetuate  the  recollection  of  his 
conspiracy  and  failure  by  this  inscription  : 

Di  Bajamonte  fo  questo  tereno 

E  m6  per  suo  iniquo  tradimento 

Se  posto  in  chomun  per  altrui  spavento 

E  per  mostrar  a  tutti  sempre  seno. 

Time  has  come  to  cover  this  among  other  sore 
places.  The  column  is  gone ;  after  many  wanderings  1 
it  rests  now  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Museo  Civico ; 
the  little  marble  slab  is  found  only  by  eyes  that  look 

1  Tiepolo's  house  stood  at  a  spot  now  known  as  the  Campiello  del 
Remer.  The  column  which  marked  the  site  was  removed  first  to 
the  angle  of  the  Church  of  Sant'  Agostino.  In  1785  it  was  taken 
to  the  Villa  iQuirini  at  Altichiero,  near  Padua,  and  in  1829  it  was 
sold  to  an  antiquary,  Sanquirico,  who  sold  it  again  to  the  Duca 
Melzi.  For  many  years  it  stood  in  the  gardens  of  Villa  Melzi  on  the 
Lake  of  Como.  Not  long  ago  the  heirs  of  Melzi  restored  it  to  the 
Commune  of  Venice.  See  Tassini,  Ctiriositci  Veneziane  (Venezig. ; 
1863),  ii.  165. 

48 


THE  TRUE  TIEPOLO  49 

for  it.  But  over  Tiepolo's  name  has  been  piled  a  cairn 
of  obloquy  more  hard  to  move.  Chronicler  after 
chronicler  has  flung  his  stone  on  the  heap,  and  Tiepolo 
still  remains  "  Bajamonte  traditore." 

Is  this  just  ?  The  chronicles  are  too  frequently 
partial ;  they  are  too  readily  and  too  often  the  mouth- 
piece of  success,  which  has  won  its  privilege  of  open 
and  uncontradicted  speech.  They  trumpet  the  fame 
of  victory ;  the  character  and  motives  of  the  defeated 
they  leave — 

black 

To  all  the  growing  calumnies  of  time, 
Which  never  spare  the  fame  of  him  who  fails, 
But  try  the  Cassar  or  the  Catiline 
By  the  true  touchstone  of  desert — success. 

We  cannot  accept  the  portraits  which  they  draw 
without  reserve.  Tiepolo,  as  they  present  him  to  us, 
is  a  restless,  ambitious,  and  turbulent  noble,  aiming  at 
the  overthrow  of  an  excellent  paternal  government  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  satisfying  his  individual  appetite 
for  sovereignty.  We  are  asked  to  believe  that  his 
conspiracy  was  based  on  nothing  but  personal  jealousy 
and  ambition.  It  is  hardly  as  such  that  we  conceive 
him.  He  was,  very  likely,  no  single-minded  hero ; 
his  motives  may  not  have  been  unmixed ;  but  the 
question  he  raised  was  a  question  worth  raising — it 
touched  the  very  core  of  Venetian  home  politics.  Her 
past  history  justified  Tiepolo's  attempt ;  his  failure 
determined  the  course  she  was  to  pursue.  Tiepolo 
represented  one  of  the  essential  elements  in  the 
original  composition  of  the  Venetian  state.  His  con- 
spiracy was  the  death-throe  of  an  older  order  of 
government.  We  cannot  look  upon  him  as  a  merely 
factious  rebel  and  traitor. 

In  the  earliest  years  of  its  life  the  vital  spark  had 
been  evoked  in  Venice  by  the  friction  between  the 
nobility  of  Heraclea  and  the  primitive  fishing  popula- 
tion of  Malamocco.  Under  external  pressure  these 
two  elements  had  come  together  at  Rialto  and  founded 

VOL.  i.  4 


50  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

the  city  we  now  know  as  Venice.  A  rapid  growth  of 
wealth  was  the  result  of  the  peace  secured  by  the 
fusion  of  discordant  elements  in  Rialto.  Venice  pro- 
fited by  her  period  of  rest  to  apply  her  energies  to 
commerce  and  trade  with  the  East.  At  the  close  of 
the  Fourth  Crusade  (1204),  when  Venice  came  to  the 
division  of  her  share  of  the  spoil,  the  dominion 
"  quartse  partis  et  dimidiae  totius  imperii  Romaniae," 
the  islands  of  the  archipelago  were  conceded,  on  a 
species  of  feudal  tenure  imitated  from  the  Franks,  to 
various  leading  families  of  the  Republic.  Andros  went 
to  the  Dandolo ;  Gajlipoli  to  the  Viaro  ;  Lampsacus  to 
Quirini ;  Stalimene  to  the  Navigaioso ;  Namfio  to  the 
Foscolo  ;  Stampalia  to  the  Ghisi — most  probably  at 
first,  then  to  the  Quirini ;  Icaria  to  Beazzano ;  San- 
torini  to  the  Barozzi ;  Cerigo  to  the  Venier;  above  all, 
Marco  Sanudo  received  the  title  of  Duke  of  the  Archi- 
pelago, and  with  it  no  less  than  nine  islands,  including 
Naxos,  Paros,  Syra,  and  Melos,  to  name  only  a  few  of 
the  enfiefments.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  among  the 
ten  families  above  mentioned,  six  did  not  belong  to 
the  oldest  Venetian  nobility — the  Case  Vecchie,  as  they 
were  called — who  traced  their  pedigree  back  to  the 
early  days  when  Tribunitian  government  prevailed 
among  the  lagoon  townships l ;  and,  secondly,  that  the 
sites  granted  to  these  families  were  the  most  important 
for  commercial  purposes  in  the  Levant,  and  virtually 
placed  the  trade  route  between  Venice  and  Constanti- 
nople in  the  hands  of  Venetians,  thus  leading  to  a 
rapid  increase  of  wealth  at  Venice.  The  colonization 
of  Crete,  again,  in  1211,  produced  a  similar  result. 
The  whole  period  immediately; following  the  Fourth 
Crusade  is  marked  by  a  rapid  expansion  of  Venetian 
trade. 

But  this  very  increase  of  prosperity  prepared  the 

way  for  new  internal  difficulties.     The  old  aristocratic 

factor,  the  Heraclean  party,  still  retained  many  of  its 

characteristics,  claiming  a  superiority  in  virtue  of  its 

1  See  Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iv.  p.  420. 


THE  NEW  ARISTOCRACY  51 

descent l ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  people 
arose  a  class  of  men  who,  by  commercial  activity,  had 
acquired  a  wealth  far  exceeding  that  of  the  old  nobility. 
These  men  were  drawn  together  by  the  common 
desire  to  assert  themselves,  to  obtain  the  full  value  of 
their  wealth,  and  the  recognition  of  their  position  as 
a  distinct  element  in  the  polity.  It  was  inevitable 
that  they  should  seek  to  develop  themselves  as  a  new 
aristocracy ;  no  other  course  was  open  to  them ; 
but,  as  inevitably,  such  a  development  brought  them 
into  collision  with  the  old  hereditary  nobility,  already 
firmly  rooted,  and  also  with  the  people  from  whom 
they  wished  to  differentiate  themselves,  but  from 
whom  they  had  really  sprung.  The  achievement  of 
their  object  could  only  tend  to  the  creation  of  a 
plutocracy,  absorbing  in  itself  the  rights  of  the  people 
and  the  powers  of  the  doge,  round  whom  the  elder 
aristocracy  gathered.  The  apparition  of  this  third 
party  in  the  state  gave  presage  of  internal  rupture 
which  was  destined  to  end  in  revolution ;  and  the 
epoch  was  marked  by  the  quarrels  between  the  families 
of  Dandolo  and  Tiepolo.2 

Neither  the  people  nor  the  old  nobility  were  as 
powerful  as  this  new  party,  and,  accordingly,  in  the 
face  of  their  common  and  aggressive  foe  they  showed 
a  tendency  to  draw  to  one  another.  It  was  doubtful, 
however,  whether  the  bond  which  united  them  was  of 
sufficient  strength  to  bear  the  strain  of  inherently 
opposite  impulses ;  indeed,  in  the  end  it  proved  not 
to  be  so.  But  for  the  present  they  were  at  one ;  and 
we  shall  see  the  people,  in  their  last  effort  to  assert 
their  place  in  the  constitution,  calling  for  a  Tiepolo 
rather  than  a  Gradenigo  as  their  doge. 

The  constitutional  history  of  Venice,  from  1084  to 
the  date  of  Tiepolo's  conspiracy  in  1310,  turns  upon 

1  We  have  a  proof  of  this  in  the  pretensions  of  the  Case  Vecchiey 
or  Tribunitian  families,  which  continued  almost  to  the  close  of  the 
Republic. 

1  Romanin,  op.  tit.  vol.  ii.  lib.  vii.  cap.  i.  p.  288,  note  I. 


52  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

the  progressive  movement  of  the  new  commercial 
aristocracy  and  the  various  steps  by  which  it  made 
itself  paramount.  This  aristocracy  had  three  primary 
objects  in  view,  and  its  development  was  regulated 
accordingly.  Its  first  desire  was  to  crush  the  power 
of  the  doge,  for  he  was  the  crown  and  centre  of  the 
old  nobility,  and  frequently  chosen  from  among  them. 
The  new  party  intended  to  use  the  ducal  title  and 
the  ducal  prestige  as  a  mask  behind  which  they  could 
shelter,  and  through  which  they  might,  as  through  a 
mouthpiece,  issue  their  crushing  and  repressive  edicts. 
They  succeeded.  Before  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century  the  dukedom  was  no  longer  the  office  of  vital 
honour  or  of  effective  power  that  it  had  been.  The 
ducal  palace  was  too  often  merely  a  prison  into  which 
this  cold  and  determined  aristocracy  could  thrust  any 
one  of  their  own  number  who  had  the  misfortune  to 
incur  their  suspicion.  The  head  of  the  state  was 
deprived  of  almost  all  real  weight,  and  left  with  empty 
dignities  alone.  The  tragedies  of  Marino jFalier  and 
of  Francesco  Foscari  illustrate  the  fate  in  store  for 
any  doge  who  should  attempt  to  resuscitate  the  ducal 
authority. 

The  second  object  which  directed  the  policy  of  the 
commercial  aristocracy  was  the  constitutional  extinc- 
tion of  the  people  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  reduction  of  the  old  nobility.  So  long  as 
the  people  still  retained  their  ancient  right  to  share  in 
the  election  of  the  doge,  so  long  as  the  members  of  the 
more  ancient  families  were  still  the  successful  candi- 
dates for  the  dukedom,  the  new  party  felt  that  it  was 
not  yet  supreme,  and  nothing  short  of  supremacy 
would  satisfy  it. 

The  third  determining  object  of  the  party  was  its 
own  consolidation.  While  it  desired  to  repress  every- 
thing external  to  itself,  it  was  continually  remodelling, 
rebuilding,  reforming,  internally  strengthening  its  own 
body,  so  that  when  the  final  struggle  came,  it  was  able 
to  offer  an  impregnable  front  to  the  attack  of  its  foes. 


THE  NEW  ARISTOCRACY  53 

The  new  aristocracy  forced  itself  like  a  solid,  irresist- 
ible wedge,  like  the  ploughshare  of  an  alpine  glacier, 
into  the  living  body  of  the  Venetian  constitution,  and, 
in  the  end,  froze  the  whole  organism  to  that  rigidity 
which,  for  a  time,  proved  strength,  but,  in  the  end, 
was  death.  It  tore  its  way  between  the  doge  and  the 
people,  severing,  annihilating,  and  thrusting  out  the 
older  aristocracy — the  living  matter  which  bound 
the  two  together.  It  retained  the  dukedom  simply  as 
a  veneer  upon  its  own  solid  surface,  structurally  un- 
connected with  it ;  while  the  people  were  ground 
down  to  a  smooth  bed  upon  which  it  might  rest. 
We  do  not,  of  course,  intend  to  imply  that  the  new 
party  in  the  state  was  working  self-consciously  to- 
wards this  end,  that  it  deliberately,  and  in  view  of  a 
pre-determined  object,  guided  each  individual  step 
in  its  progress ;  but,  deducing  from  results,  we  may 
conclude  that  such  was  the  trend  of  the  party's  policy 
and  such  the  spirit  which  animated  its  action. 

The  steps  by  which  this  third  party,  the  new  aristo- 
cracy, worked  towards  its  goal,  destroyed  all  other 
powers  in  the  state,  and  emerged  as  sole  lord  of 
Venice,  call  for  careful  attention ;  they  form  the  long 
prelude  to  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council,  and 
Tiepolo's  conspiracy,  the  immediate  outcome  of  that 
revolution. 

For  some  time  previous  to  the  year  1172  the 
aristocracy  had  been  engaged  in  curtailing  the  func- 
tions and  privileges  of  the  dukedom.  Its  judicial 
attributes  had  long  disappeared  ;  they  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  three  Guidici  del  Palazzo,  and  even  the 
appeal  from  this  court,  which  formerly  lay  to  the 
doge,  had  been  vested  in  the  supreme  court  of  Venice, 
the  Quarantia.  But  it  was  not  till  the  election  of 
the  Doge  Sebastian  Ziani,  in  the  year  1172,  that 
the  aristocracy  obtained  a  solid  and  independent 
standing  ground  in  the  constitution.  A  gap  of  six 
months  intervened  between  the  assassination  of  Doge 
Michelle  II.  and  the  election  of  Ziani.  In  those  six 


54  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

months  the  nobles  drew  together  into  a  legislative 
council,  called  henceforth  by  the  name  of  the  Maggior 
Consiglio  l ;  the  base  of  the  pyramidal  Venetian  con- 
stitution, the  largest  cylinder,  out  of  which  all  the 
lesser  cylinders  of  the  various  executive  and  legis- 
lative colleges  were  drawn.  The  immediate  object 
of  this  cohesion  on  the  part  of  the  aristocracy,  old 
and  new  alike,  was  to  secure  to  itself  the  sole  voice 
in  the  election  of  the  doge  ;  to  rob  the  people  of  their 
share  in  appointing  the  head  of  the  state.  In  this 
the  nobles  were  successful ;  the  election  of  Ziani 
was  unconstitutional,  for  it  lacked  the  seal  of  popular 
acclaim.2  But  the  robbery  was  veiled  under  the 
specious  formula  with  which  the  new  doge  was  pre- 
sented to  the  people,  "  Questo  e  il  vostro  doge  si  vi 
piacera,"  and,  subauditur,  whether  it  please  you  or 
not.8 

And  now,  from  this  solid  basis  of  the  Maggior 
Consiglio,  the  aristocracy  could  thrust  itself  forward 
and  upward,  until  every  office  in  the  state  was  an 
emanation  from  itself  alone.  But  this  operation  re- 
quired time.  Owing  to  the  mode  of  election,  the 
Great  Council  was  not  yet  a  close  body ;  a  seat  in 
it  was  still  open  to  all  citizens  of  Venice.  The  new 
aristocracy  were  resolved  to  purge  themselves  of 
this  popular  element,  not  because  they  had  any  true 
aristocratic  bias,  but  because,  for  the  purposes  of  such 
a  government  as  they  contemplated,  they  felt  that  a 
body  like  theirs  must  be  made  a  caste — must  become 

1  It  is  improbable  that  this  was  the  first  appearance  of  such  a 
council  in  Venice,  but  it  is  certain  that  its  existence  was  reckoned  as 
an  undisputed  fact  from  this  date.  The  manner  of  electing  was 
originally  this :  Twelve  electors  were  appointed,  two  from  each 
sestieri,  or  division  of  the  city  ;  each  elector  named  forty  citizens, 
noble  or  plebeian  ;  these  480  formed  the  Maggior  Consiglio  (Rom. 
op.  tit.  vol.  ii.  p.  89  ;  Giannoti,  Dialogtis  de  Rep.  Ven.  p.  40,  and  the 
notes  of  Crassus  to  the  same  ;  Ap.  Grcev.  Thesaur.  Anti.  Ital.). 

*  Bernardo  Guistiniano,  DelP  Origine  di  Venetia,  lib.  xi. 

s  Marin,  Storia  Civile  e  Politico,  del  Com.  dei  Venez.  vol.  iii.  lib.  iii. 
cap.  vii. 


CURTAILMENT  OF  THE  DOGE'S  POWER    55 

oligarchical.  But  as  yet  their  party  was  young,  with 
many  difficulties  to  overcome ;  notably  the  power  of 
the  doge,  and  the  power  of  the  old  aristocracy ;  the 
one  supporting  the  other  as  integral  portions  of  the 
same  political  system. 

Nevertheless,  the  immense  stride  which  the  commer- 
cial aristocracy  had  taken  towards  a  real  sovereignty 
in  the  state  was  soon  shown  by  the  establishment  of 
the  college  of  six  Consiglieri  Ducali,1  in  some  respects 
a  sort  of  privy  council  board.  The  creation  of  this 
office  was  a  decided  blow  to  the  ducal  independence. 
It  robbed  the  doge  of  his  power  of  initiative  in  the 
legislature;  it  curtailed  his  personal  freedom  of 
action ;  for  now  constitutional  measures  were  pro- 
posed not  by  the  doge  alone,  but  by  the  doge  in 
council,  and  in  council  with  the  aristocracy.  Ques- 
tions of  foreign  policy — especially  as  regarded  com- 
merce— the  audiences  granted  to  ambassadors,  were 
entrusted  no  longer  to  the  doge  alone,  but  to  the 
doge  in  council.  The  invention  and  development  of 
this  college  placed  two  of  the  most  important  ducal 
functions  in  commission,  and  that  commission  was 
the  appointment  and  the  servant  of  the  aristocracy. 

But  while  restricting  the  real  power  of  their 
doge,  the  aristocracy  continued  to  augment  the  out- 
ward pomp  attendant  on  him.  This  could  be  of 
no  danger  to  themselves ;  it  only  added  a  splendour 
to  the  state  and  helped  to  flatter  their  own  vanity. 
On  the  day  of  his  election  the  doge  was  carried 
round  the  piazza,2  like  the  Eastern  emperors,  scat- 
tering gold.  He  received  an  oath  of  allegiance  from 
all  the  citizens  every  four  years.  He  never  now 

1  Originally  this  board  had  consisted  of  two  councillors.  This  was 
now  held  to  be  too  weak  a  check  on  the  doge,  and  four  more  were 
added.  See  Roman,  op.  tit.  vol.  ii.  p.  92. 

*  Dandolo,  Chronicon,  lib.  x.  cap.  i.  ;  Marin.  op.  tit.  vol.  iii.  lib.  ii. 
cap.  vii.  ;  Sansovino,  Venezia,  tittct  Nobtlima  e  Singolare^  lib.  xiii. 
Vita  di  Seb.  Ziani.  Muazzo,  St.  d.  governed.  Rep.  d.  Venez.;  Roman. 
op.  tit.  vol.  ii.  p.  255,  note  5. 


56  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

left  his  palace  without  an  escort  of  nobles  and 
citizens.  His  person  was  declared  sacrosanct.  The 
ducal  position  was  becoming  defined — "  Dux  in  foro, 
servus  in  consilio  "  ;  later  on  he  was  to  be  "  captivus 
in  palatio  "  as  well. 

This  initial  attack  was  soon  followed  by  a  further 
restriction  of  the  constitutional  powers  and  privileges 
pertaining  to  the  dukedom.     During  the  first  thirty 
years  of  the  thirteenth  century   the   College  of  the 
Pregadi l  (the  invited),  usually  known  as  the  Senate, 
was  established  as  a  permanent  branch  of  the  legis- 
lature.    Formerly  the  doge,  like  the  kings  of  England, 
had  been  free  to  ask  any  citizen  to  assist  him  with 
advice    on    matters   of   state.      But    now    the  Great 
Council  issued   two  decrees :   the  first,2  that  for  the 
future  the  members  of  the  Pregadi  should  be  elected 
by  the  Great  Council  itself,  and  out  of  that  body,  as 
the   other  members  of  the    Government  were;    the 
second,  that  the  number  of  the  Pregadi  be  fixed  at 
sixty.     Here,  then,  was  the  Senate  constituted  beyond 
the  power  or  the  pleasure  of  the  doge ;  constituted  as 
a  limb  of  the  aristocracy.      Undoubtedly  this  was  a 
curtailment  of  the  ducal  freedom,  a  further  tying  of 
the  doge's   hands.     For  he  was   no   longer   able,  by 
choosing  his  council  himself,  to  determine  what  kind 
of  advice  he  should  receive,  and  to  flavour  it  according 
to  his  own  liking ;  but  he  was  compelled  to  accept 
such  advice  as  the  Great  Council  chose  to  give  him, 
and  it  was  now   seasoned  to  the  palate  of  the  aris- 
tocracy.    By  the  election  of  his  councillors  from  the 
Maggior  Consiglio,  the  doge  was  rendered  more  than 
ever  a  servant  of  the  new  aristocratic  party. 

But  while  the  new  party  had  been  pinioning  their 
doge,  they  had  also  been  advancing  on  their  other 
wing,  pressing  forward  the  other  side  of  their  attack 
against  the  ancient  nobility.  On  the  abdication  of 

1  Sandi.  /  Principi  di  Storia  Civ.  d.  Rep.  d.  Ven.  (Venezia :  1755), 
lib.  iv.  p.  507,  cap.  ii. 
3  Sandi.  loc.  cit. 


ATTACK  ON  THE  OLD  NOBILITY       57 

Pietro  Ziani  in  the  year  1229,  two  competitors  for  the 
ducal  chair  presented  themselves — Jacopo  Tiepolo,  of 
the   old   conservative  party,1  and  Marino  Dandolo,  a 
member  of  a  family  which  had  declared  for  the  party 
of  revolution.     It  was  doubtless  of  great  moment  to 
the  new  aristocracy,  now  that  it  had   succeeded  in 
limiting    the    ducal  power,   to   seat  one  of   its  own 
number  on  the  ducal  throne.     With  a  man  after  their 
own   heart  established   in   the  palace,  there  was  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  succeed  in  baffling  the 
old   aristocracy.     The  contest  was   therefore  a  keen 
one.     At  this  period  the  number  of  ducal  electors  was 
forty,  and  so  close  was  the  voting  that  the  forty  were 
equally  divided.     The   election  was   decided   by  lot, 
and  fell  in  favour  of  Tiepolo.     But  this  check  to  the 
new  aristocracy  only  served  to  call  forth  a  vigorous 
display  of  their  real  power.     The  Maggior  Consiglio 
appointed  the  five  Correttori  delta  Promissione  ducale? 
or  committee  for  supervising  the  oath  of  allegiance 
tendered  by  the  doge  on  assuming  office.     The  Cor- 
rettori received  authority  to  alter  and  amend  the  oath 
in  any  direction  they  might  think  fit,  subject  always 
to  the  sanction  of  the  Great  Council.     At  the  same 
time,  and  with  the  same  object,  the  new  aristocracy 
appointed  the  three  inquisitors,3  whose  duty  it  was  to 
review  the  life  and  actions  of  a  deceased  doge,  and  to 
note  where  he  had  violated  his  oath.     The  inquisitors 
were  armed  with  power  over  the  heirs  and  property 

1  Tiepolo  had  been  podestd,  at  Constantinople  and  Duke  of  Candia 
(Rom.  op,  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  212). 

1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  244.  The  earliest  promissione  extant  is 
that  of  the  Doge  Enrico  Dandolo,  1193.  "The  promissione  of  Tiepolo 
is  given  as  Doc.  No.  VI.  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  History  of  the  Venetian 
Republic^  where  it  may  be  compared  with  that  of  Dandolo,  which 
precedes  it  (Sandi.  op.  cit.  lib.  iv.  cap.  iii.).  The  promissione  of  the 
Doge  Orio  Mastropiero,  dated  1181,  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  corona- 
tion oath — Mastropiero  succeeded  in  1178 — but  is  of  the  nature  of 
a  criminal  code.  See  Predelli  and  Besta,  Nuovo  Arch.  Ven.  new 
series,  i.  pp.  1-42. 

3  Sandi.  loc.  cit. 


58  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

of  the  late  doge,  in  order  that  the  fear  of  them  might 
weigh  with  him  when  alive. 

There  was,  however,  a  second  important  result 
arising  from  the  election  of  Tiepolo.  It  became 
obvious  that  if  the  electoral  body  could  be  divided 
always,  as  it  had  been  on  this  occasion,  some  reform 
of  the  whole  elective  machinery  was  required.  The 
new  party,  with  their  special  objects  steadily  in  view, 
determined  to  use  the  opportunity  for  their  own 
purposes.  Accordingly  they  elaborated  that  extra- 
ordinarily complex  system  of  combined  lot  and  ballot 
which  resulted  in  the  appointment  of  the  forty-one 
electors  to  the  dukedom.1  They  hoped  that  this 
system  would  prevent  any  powerful  group  in  the 
Maggior  Consiglio  from  being  able  ever  to  nominate 
a  doge  at  their  own  pleasure.  This  reform  was  really 
a  blow  to  the  old  aristocracy,  who,  up  to  this  time, 
had  undoubtedly  the  larger  experience  of  affairs  of 
state,  and  therefore  the  larger  control  in  the  selection 
of  the  doge.  Besides  this  result,  the  new  aristocracy 
possibly  foresaw  that  when  they  had  succeeded  in 
obliterating  or  swamping  the  old  nobility  in  the  Great 

1  The  first  election  by  the  forty-one  was  that  of  Marin  Morosini  in 
1249.     See  Rom.  op.  tit.  vol.  ii.  p.  249. 
This  was  the  process  : 

1.  All  who  sat   in  the  Maggior  Consiglio,  and  were  above  thirty 
years  of  age,  elected  by  ballot  thirty  members. 

2.  Thirty  reduced  themselves  by  lot  to  nine. 

3.  Nine  elected  by  ballot,  with  at  least  six  votes  each,  forty. 

4.  Forty  reduced  themselves  by  lot  to  twelve. 

5.  Twelve  elected  by  ballot  twenty-five. 

6.  Twenty-five  reduced  themselves  by  lot  to  nine. 

7.  Nine  elected  by  ballot  forty-five. 

8.  Forty-five  reduced  themselves  by  lot  to  eleven. 

9.  Eleven  elected  by  ballot  forty-one. 

10.  Forty-one  elected  doge  with  at  least  twenty-five  votes. 

(See  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  pp.  289,  290,  note  3  ;  also  the  long  account 
of  the  election  of  Lorenzo  Tiepolo  in  the  Cronaca  Veneta  of  Martin  de 
Canal,  capp.  257-9 ;  Arch.  St.  It.  torn.  viii.  ;  Sandi.  loc.  cit.  Daru, 
Histoire  de  la  Rtp.  de  Venise  (Paris  :  1819),  vol.  i.  p.  378,  gives  some 
popular  doggerels  on  the  mode  of  election.) 


NEW  POSITION  OF  THE  DOGE         59 

Council,  such  a  purely  fortuitous  method  of  election  as 
the  one  now  created  would  greatly  help  to  prevent 
their  own  party  from  falling  to  pieces  through  internal 
jealousies,  when  the  day  came  that  they,  and  they 
alone,  should  possess  the  field. 

After  the  year  1250  the  annihilation  of  the  ducal 
authority  was  completed  by  a  series  of  restrictions  on 
the  personal  private  action  of  the  doge.  He  was  no 
longer  the  real  head  of  the  state,  above  all  offices, 
and  from  whom  all  other  branches  of  the  government 
fell  away  in  descending  and  spreading  lines.  The 
position  was  just  reversed ;  he  was  for  the  future  to 
be  simply  the  ornamental  apex  of  the  aristocracy, 
drawing  all  his  existence  from  below  him,  from  the 
base  of  the  constitutional  pyramid.  A  clause  was 
added  to  the  promissione  by  which  the  doge  pledged 
himself  to  execute  the  orders  of  the  Great  Council,  or 
of  any  other  council,  be  they  what  they  might.1  Nor 
dared  the  doge  exhibit  his  portrait,  his  bust,  or  his 
coat-of-arms  2  anywhere  outside  the  walls  of  the  ducal 
palace,  that  all  might  know  that  the  essence  of  the 
dukedom  was  not  resident  in  the  doge,  but  in  the 
whole  aristocratic  body.  The  doge  was,  in  fact,  to  be 
the  phenomenon  of  the  aristocracy,  with  no  individual 
existence,  but  living  only  as  the  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  the  inward  aristocratic  spirit.3  In  this  view  he 
was  held  to  be  incompetent  to  announce  his  accession 
to  the  throne  in  any  foreign  court,  except  that  of 
Rome.  No  one  was  to  kneel  to  him,  kiss  hands,  make 
presents,  or  render  him  any  act  of  homage  which 
could  possibly  be  construed  as  homage  to  the  indi- 

1  Sandi.  op.  cit.  lib.  iv.  cap.  iv.  p.  2. 

1  On  the  death  of  Renier  Zeno  in  1268,  the  quarrels  between  the 
two  parties  in  the  state,  represented  by  the  Dandolo  and  the  Tiepolo 
respectively,  grew  so  dangerous  and  began  to  spread  so  far,  that  a 
law  was  passed  forbidding  a  citizen  to  display  the  arms  of  any  great 
house  as  a  note  of  his  politics — the  first  warning  of  the  constitutional 
struggle  about  to  take  place  (Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  288,  note  i). 

3  He  was  not  allowed  to  trade  either  in  person  or  by  proxy  (Rom. 
op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  292,  note  i). 


60  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

vidual  rather  than  homage  to  the  spirit  of  the  aris- 
tocracy in  which  alone  the  doge  lived  and  moved.1 
The  elevation  of  a  member  of  any  family  to  the 
supreme  office  barred  all  other  members  of  that  family 
from  holding  posts  under  government  either  in  Venice 
or  in  Venetian  territory.  The  sons  of  the  doge  were 
ineligible  as  members  of  any  councils  except  the 
Maggior  Consiglio  and  the  Pregadi,2  and  in  this  latter 
they  had  no  vote.  Finally,  to  complete  the  isolation 
of  the  ducal  throne,  to  close  the  doors  of  the  princely 
prison,  it  was  decreed  that  no  one  who  might  be 
elected  to  the  office  of  doge  should  have  the  right 
to  refuse  that  appointment ;  that  no  doge  could 
of  his  own  choice  resign  his  office,  nor  ever  quit 
Venice.3 

So  far,  then,  we  have  followed  the  advancing  steps 
of  the  new  aristocracy.  It  had  absorbed  the  ducal 
authority,  and  had  delivered  two  well-planted  blows — 
one  at  the  old  nobility,  by  introducing  a  mode  of 
election  to  the  dogado  which  destroyed  the  ancient 
influence  of  that  body;  the  other  at  the  people, 
by  robbing  them  of  their  constitutional  privilege 
of  a  voice  in  the  election  of  the  doge.  But 
complete  victory  over  these  powers  had  not  yet 
been  won.  The  new  party  had  yet  to  establish 

1  See  the  ancient  formula  for  the  annual  reception  of  the  people  of 
Poveglia  in  honour  of  their  valiant  aid  against  Pipin.  When  they 
reached  the  doge's  presence  he  said,  "  Sie'  i  ben  vegnudi "  (Welcome) ; 
to  which  they  reply,  "Dio  vi  dia  el  buon  dl  messer  lo  Dose,  semo 
vegnui  a  disnar  con  vu  "  (God  give  you  good  morrow,  Master  Doge, 
we've  come  to  dine  with  you) ;  and  they  added,  "  Volemo  la  nostra 
regalia"  (We  want  our  regalia).  "  Volentiera,  che  cosa?"  (Willingly, 
what  is  it  ?)  replies  the  doge  ;  and  the  people  cry,  "  Vi  volemo  basar  " 
(We  want  to  kiss  you).  It  is  a  scene  of  familiar  friendliness,  without 
a  suggestion  of  the  majesty  that  doth  hedge  a  king,  or  the  awe  inspired 
by  a  court.  Molmenti,  op.  cit.  part  ii.  p.  468. 

*  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  250 ;  Sandi.  loc.  cit.  Neither  the  doge, 
nor  his  sons,  nor  his  nephews  might  contract  a  foreign  marriage 
without  the  consent  of  the  Maggior  Consiglio.  •  See  the  promissione 
of  Jacopo  Contarini,  1275  (Rom.  loc.  cit.  p.  305,  note  2). 

J  Sandi.  loc.  cit. 


PROPOSALS  FOR  CLOSING  THE  COUNCIL    61 

and  consolidate  itself  internally,  and  in  the  process 
the  final  collision  was  brought  about — a  collision 
which  terminated  in  the  Tiepolo-Querini  conspiracy. 
As  long  as  a  seat  in  the  Great  Council  was  open 
to  the  people  there  still  remained  a  large  and 
indefinite  popular  element  in  the  constitution ;  from 
this  element  the  aristocracy  determined  to  free 
themselves. 

The  tumultuous  nature  of  democratic  assemblies 
will  usually  lend  a  handle  to  those  who  desire  to 
establish  a  tyranny.  It  was  upon  the  necessity  for 
curbing  the  jealousy,  the  ambition,  the  feud  engendered 
by  a  yearly  struggle  for  a  seat  in  the  Great  Council, 
that  the  new  party  based  their  proposals  of  October  5, 
1286.  By  these  proposals  it  was  intended  to  define 
the  right  to  a  seat  in  the  council  for  all  future  time. 
Accordingly  the  three  heads  of  the  Quarantia  moved,1 
first,  that  none  should  be  eligible  for  a  seat  who 
could  not  prove  that  a  paternal  ancestor  had  already 
sat ;  secondly,  that  the  doge,  the  majority  of  the 
Consiglieri  Ducali,  and  the  majority  of  the  Great 
Council  should  have  the  power  to  elect  to  a  seat  in 
the  council  any  who  should  be  excluded  by  the 
preceding  clause.  The  doge  opposed  the  motion, 
and  carried  his  opposition  by  eighty-two  against  forty. 
Although  the  motion  was  thus  lost,  yet  it  was  a 
distinct  declaration  of  programme,  and  to  this  pro- 
gramme the  new  aristocracy  devoted  itself  for  the 
next  ten  years.  In  this  policy  there  were  two  in- 
tentions visible :  one  was  to  make  the  aristocracy 
a  close  body  for  the  future,  sharply  defined,  rigid, 
capable  of  very  little  further  expansion ;  the  other, 
to  make  membership  in  this  close  body  an  indis- 
pensable qualification  to  all  offices  of  state.  These 
objects  were  the  logical  conclusion  following  from 
the  creation  of  the  Great  Council  in  the  year  1172; 

1  See  Tentori,  //  vero  Caratere  Polit.  d.  Baj.  Tiep.  p.  74 ; 
Romanin,  op.  cit,  vol.  ii.  p.  342,  note  3 ;  Sandi.  op.  at.  lib.  v. 
cap.  i.  p.  i. 


62  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

though   the  realization  of  them  would  undoubtedly 
be  a  violation  of  the  constitution. 

They  were,  however,  to  be  realized ;  the  constitu- 
tion was  to  be  violated,  but  by  another  doge.  In  the 
year  1289  Giovanni  Dandolo  died.  He  was  buried  in 
the  Church  of  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo.  As  the  crowd 
of  senators,  councillors,  procurators,  and  magistrates 
issued  from  the  great  door  of  the  church,  after  the 
funeral  service  was  over,  they  found  the  piazza 
thronged  by  the  people.  They  were  there  once  more, 
and  for  the  last  time,  to  assert  their  right  to  be  heard 
in  the  election  of  the  doge.1  Their  cry  was  not  for 
a  Dandolo  or  a  Gradenigo,  but  for  Jacopo  Tiepolo, 
a  representative  of  the  old  nobility,  and  closely  con- 
nected with  those  families  who  were  violently  opposed 
to  the  revolution  which  was  silently  going  on  in  the 
state.  No  choice  could  have  been  less  fortunate. 
Tiepolo  was  a  man  of  good  abilities ;  he  had  held 
many  important  posts  under  the  government.  But 
he  was  certainly  timid  ;  perhaps  at  heart  averse  to 
bloodshed  and  rilled  with  horror  at  the  prospect  of 
civil  war.  He  knew  that  his  elevation  to  the  dukedom 
would  exasperate  the  new  party  to  such  a  pitch  as 
to  render  a  violent  explosion  inevitable.  He  was  not 
the  man  to  lead  the  people  and  the  old  nobility  at 
a  crisis  like  the  present ;  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
over-persuaded,  and  withdrew  to  his  villa  on  the 
mainland.  A  great  occasion  for  the  anti-reform  party 
was  lost,  and  civil  war  became  more  probable  than 
ever. 

The  popular  cries  from  the  piazza  of  Zanipolo  rang 
in  the  ears  of  the  new  aristocracy,  and  warned  them 
that  they  were  as  yet  far  from  success.  Much  de- 
pended on  the  selection  of  a  doge.  It  was  necessary 
to  find  a  man  who  should  be  at  once  devoted  to  their 
cause  and  yet  of  commanding  powers.  Their  choice 
was  happily  directed ;  it  fell  upon  a  young  man, 
comparatively  young  for  so  high  an  honour,  Piero 
1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  323. 


ELECTION   OF  GRADENIGO  63 

Gradenigo.  He  was  thirty-eight  years  old  at  that 
time,  and  podesta  of  Capo  d'lstria.  In  every  way  he 
was  suited  to  the  occasion.  From  his  birth  devoted 
to  the  new  party,  fully  grasping  their  political  inten- 
tions, rapid  and  intrepid  in  action,  he  at  the  same 
time  possessed  a  coolness  of  judgment  which  made 
him  pre-eminently  fitted  to  guide  his  party  through 
a  crisis  like  the  present.  His  unpopularity  with  the 
people,  which  won  for  him  the  name  of  "  Pierazzo," 
was  only  a  further  recommendation  in  the  eyes  of 
the  new  aristocracy.  He  summed  up  in  his  person 
the  essence  of  the  party  he  was  now  called  upon 
to  lead. 

Gradenigo  arrived  from  Capo  d'lstria,  and  was 
received  in  ominous  silence  by  the  populace.  The 
new  doge  at  once  applied  himself  to  the  work  that 
was  expected  of  him.  The  propositions  of  1286 
clearly  indicated  the  wishes  of  his  party.  Nothing 
remained  for  him  but  to  reformulate  them  and  propose 
them  afresh  in  the  council.  In  February,  1297,  he 
moved  the  famous  measure  which  has  since  been 
known  as  the  Serrata  del  Maggior  Consiglio,  the 
closing  of  the  Great  Council.1  The  terms  of  this  act 
were : — 

"  i.  That  all  who  have  sat  in  the  Maggior  Consiglio 
during  the  last  four  years  shall  present  themselves 
for  ballot  before  the  Forty,  and,  on  obtaining  twelve 
votes,  shall  be  members  of  the  Maggior  Consiglio  for 
one  year. 

"  2.  That  those  who  fail  to  present  themselves  now, 
owing  to  absence  from  Venice,  shall  do  so  on  their 
return. 

"  3.  That  three  electors  be  appointed,  who,  on 
the  indication  of  the  doge  and  his  council,  may 
nominate  certain  citizens  from  among  those  who  are 
excluded  by  the  first  clause.  That  those  nominated 

1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  pp.  343,  544,  note  2  ;  Tentori,  op.  tit. 
pp.  74,  75,  76,  where  the  act  is  given  in  full ;  Sandi.  loc.  cit.  ; 
Gianotii,  op.  cit.  p.  53. 


64  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

shall  go  through  the  ballot  before  the  Forty,  and, 
on  obtaining  twelve  votes,  shall  sit  in  the  Maggior 
Consiglio. 

"4.  That  the  three  electors  shall  be  members  of 
the  Maggior  Consiglio. 

"  5.  That  this  statute  may  not  be  repealed  except 
on  the  vote  of  five  out  of  the  six  Consiglieri  Ducali, 
twenty-five  of  the  Forty,  and  two-thirds  of  the  Great 
Council. 

"6.  That,  within  the  first  fifteen  days  of  each 
year,  the  Consiglieri  Ducali  shall  move  the  question 
whether  the  whole  act  is  to  stand  or  to  be  modified 
or  repealed. 

"7.  That  the  heads  of  the  Forty  shall  post  the 
names  of  those  who  are  about  to  be  balloted  for 
three  days  before  the  election  takes  place.  That 
thirty  shall  constitute  a  quorum  of  the  Forty." 

This  measure  was  carried.  But  its  terms  were  not 
stringent  enough  to  satisfy  the  new  aristocracy.  Their 
body  was  not  yet  sufficiently  close ;  a  seat  in  the  Great 
Council  could  be  obtained  too  easily.  In  1298  the  act 
was  amended ;  a  majority  of  the  Forty,  in  place  of  only 
twelve  votes,  became  indispensable  to  secure  a  seat. 
In  the  same  year  the  list  of  selected  candidates  was 
confined  to  those  who  could  prove  that  a  paternal 
ancestor  had  at  some  time  sat  in  the  Great  Council. 
In  the  year  1315  the  government  opened  an  official 
record1  of  all  those  who  possessed  the  requisite 
qualifications,  and  whose  names  could  be  submitted 
to  the  ballot. 

A  rush  of  citizens  to  establish  their  nobility,  to 
secure  a  place  in  the  governing  class  before  it  should 
be  too  late,  took  place.  Abuses  soon  appeared  in  the 
register :  parents  entered  the  names  of  illegitimate 
children,  and  the  severe  decrees  of  1316  and  1319 

1  This  register  formed  the  prototype  of  the  so-called  Libro  (fOro, 
or  register  of  births  and  marriages  among  the  nobility.  The  birth 
register  was  opened  on  August  31,  1506,  and  the  marriage  register  on 
April  26,  1528.  Romania,  op.  cit.  ii.  349. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  SERRATA        65 

became  necessary  to  purge  the  list.  The  Avvogadori 
di  Commun  were  entrusted  with  inquisitorial  powers 
to  examine  family  history ;  the  duties  of  a  herald's 
office  were  added  to  their  functions.  If  they  admitted 
a  name  to  the  register,  that  was  taken  as  sufficient 
proof  of  its  qualification.  The  office  of  the  three 
electors  was  abolished.  All  those  whose  names 
appeared  on  the  register  were,  on  attaining  the  age 
of  twenty-five,  considered  eligible  to  a  seat  in  the 
Maggior  Consiglio. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  closing 
of  the  Great  Council  was  in  any  sense  a  coup  d'etat. 
The  constitutional  history  of  Venice  had  been  tending 
in  that  direction  for  more  than  a  century,  and  the 
actual  measure  was  not  passed  at  one  stroke,  or 
by  unconstitutional  violence ;  several  years  elapsed 
before  it  could  be  finally  established.  Nor  was  it  an 
absolute  and  rigid  closing  of  the  council ;  a  little 
stream  of  fresh  blood  might  still  creep  in  through  the 
grace  of  the  doge  and  the  three  electors,  although  it 
is  true  that  the  free  circulation  from  the  people,  the 
heart  of  the  state,  was  effectually  choked.  The  decree 
virtually  cancelled  family  history  previous  to  1172, 
the  date  when  the  Great  Council  was  formally 
established.  It  mattered  not  how  old  a  family  might 
be,  nor  what  services  it  might  have  rendered  to 
the  state ;  if,  by  some  accident,  none  of  its  members, 
during  these  hundred  and  twenty-four  years,  had  sat 
in  the  Maggior  Consiglio,  that  family  now  became 
disfranchised,  unrepresented,  robbed  of  all  share  in 
ruling  the  state  it  may  have  helped  to  make.  The 
result  of  the  statute  was  to  divide  the  population  into 
two  classes.  The  one,  by  an  accident  of  parentage, 
had  a  right  to  claim  a  seat  in  the  Great  Council  of 
Venice ;  the  other  had  no  such  right,  nor  any  hope 
of  obtaining  it,  but  by  the  exceptional  grace  of  men 
who,  before  the  passing  of  the  act,  were,  con- 
stitutionally, their  equals.  And  these  graces  were 
rendered  more  and  more  difficult  to  secure,  till,  in 

VOL.  i.  5 


66  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

the  year  1328,  they  seem  to  have  ceased  altogether; 
nor  were  they  renewed  till  after  the  war  of 
Chioggia,  in  the  year  1380,  when  an  addition  of 
thirty  families  was  made  to  the  roll  of  the  Venetian 
patriciate. 

To  be  deprived  of  a  seat  in  the  Great  Council  was 
to  be  doomed  for  life  to  political  silence  in  Venice. 
The  way  to  all  honours,  to  all  activity,  lay  through 
that  assembly ;  those  who  were  excluded  were,  in 
fact,  disfranchised.  The  aristocracy  had  effected 
their  object ;  they  had  robbed  a  free  people  of 
their  rights  and  converted  them  to  their  own  sole 
use.  When  we  think  of  the  injustice  of  the  act  we 
cannot  wonder  that  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council 
caused  a  conspiracy  which  shook  Venice  to  her 
foundations. 

The  new  aristocracy  triumphed ;  but  doubtless  they 
did  not  expect  to  be  left  in  undisturbed  enjoyment  of 
their  victory.  Nor  were  they,  although  their  opponents, 
the  old  aristocracy  and  the  people,  failed  to  unite  their 
forces,  the  only  course  which  offered  any  prospect  of 
success  against  the  victorious  party.  The  popular 
indignation  was  the  first  to  make  itself  felt.  In  the 
year  1300  Marco  Bocconio,  a  man  of  respectable  but 
not  of  noble  family,  organized  a  rising  of  the  populace.1 
He  proved  unequal  to  his  task.  The  doge  was  warned 
in  time ;  the  conspiracy  never  had  the  deadliness  of 
secrecy.  We  may  dismiss  this  futile  attempt  almost 
as  curtly  as  the  chronicler  Sanudo  does.2  "  It  is 
written,"  he  says,  "  that  the  doge  took  good  means 
to  have  the  conspirators  in  his  hands,  and  had  them." 
Good  means,  truly.  Bocconio  and  his  friends  had 
determined  on  a  physical  assertion  of  their  right  to 
enter  the  Great  Council.  Followed  by  a  mass  of  the 
people,  they  presented  themselves  at  the  door  of 
the  chamber  and  knocked.  Those  inside  were  ready  ; 

1  See  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  cap.  i. 

*  Sanudo,  Vite  dei  Duchi,  ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  torn.  xxii. 
p.  581. 


VENICE  UNDER  INTERDICT  67 

the  door  was  opened,  and,  in  the  doge's  name,  the 
leaders  were  invited  to  enter,  one  by  one,  that  they 
might  submit  to  the  ballot  and  win  their  seat.  Bocconio 
and  ten  of  his  followers  passed  in  ;  they  were  instantly 
seized  and  executed  in  the  prisons ;  the  voice  of  this 
revolt  was  stifled  beneath  the  waters  of  the  lagoon 
that  hid  so  many  Venetian  secrets.  After  the  leaders 
were  despatched,  between  five  and  six  hundred  of  their 
supporters  are  said  to  have  suffered  death.  "And  so," 
to  quote  the  chronicler  again,  "  ended  this  sedition, 
in  such  wise  that  no  one  dared  any  more  to  open  his 
mouth  after  a  like  fashion."1 

Not  after  a  like  fashion,  it  is  true ;  for  the  people 
had  entered  their  protest,  had  struck  their  blow,  and 
had  failed.  It  remained  for  the  old  conservative  party 
to  make  their  attempt  against  the  revolution  which 
had  been  effected.  But  they  were  not  ready  yet,  and 
were  by  no  means  unwilling  to  wait.  Time  was  all 
in  their  favour,  for  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Doge 
Gradenigo  and  his  followers  was  daily  deepening  the 
hatred  against  them.  The  doge's  insistence  on  the 
Venetian  claim  to  Ferrara  had  involved  the  republic 
in  a  disastrous  war;  it  had  also  brought  Venice  into 
collision  with  the  pope.  The  Holy  See  had  revived 
its  title  to  the  Ferrarese,  and  after  repeated  orders 
to  the  Venetians  to  retire  from  before  Ferrara, 
there  came  a  sentence  of  excommunication  against 
the  state  of  Venice.  The  clergy  left  the  city;  the 
sacraments  were  refused ;  burial,  even,  with  religious 
rites  was  denied.  The  sentence  weighed  heavily  on 
the  people.  But  worse  was  to  follow.  The  excom- 
munication was  supported  by  the  publication  of  a 
crusade ;  liberty  and  indulgence  were  given  to  any 
attack  upon  Venetian  subjects  or  property.  In 
England,  in  France,  in  Italy,  in  the  East,  the  mer- 
chants were  robbed.  From  Southampton  to  Pera 
Venetian  counting-houses,  banks,  and  factories  were 

1  Sanudo,  Vite  dei  Ducht\  ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  loc.  tit. 


68  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

forced,  sacked,  and  destroyed.  The  commerce  of 
Venice  trembled  on  the  verge  of  extinction;  and  all 
these  evils  were  laid  at  the  door  of  the  doge  and  the 
new  aristocracy.  But  the  party  in  power  never 
wavered ;  their  determination  was  the  result  and  the 
proof  of  their  youth,  their  confidence,  their  real 
capacity  for  governing.  Though  surrounded  by  a 
people  suffering  intensely  from  physical  and  spiritual 
want,  as  well  as  by  a  nobility  who  openly  professed 
hatred  of  the  ruling  policy  and  of  its  authors,  the 
new  aristocracy  deviated  not  for  a  single  moment 
from  the  predetermined  line.  Everything  was  done 
to  win  the  regard  and  the  support  of  the  people. 
The  doge  instituted  a  yearly  banquet  to  the  poor 
and  the  picturesque  ceremony  of  washing  and  kissing 
twelve  fishermen  from  the  lagoons.  Steps  were  also 
taken  to  humble,  insult,  and  ridicule  the  old  nobility. 
Marco  Querini  was  refused  a  seat  among  the  ducal 
councillors,  and  the  place  was  bestowed  on  Doimo, 
Count  of  Veglia,1  in  spite  of  a  statute  which  forbade 
a  Dalmatian  to  hold  that  office.  The  law  against 
carrying  arms  in  the  streets  was  enforced  with 
rigour.  Marco  Morosini,  a  "  Lord  of  the  night,"3 
met  Pietro  Querini  one  evening  in  the  piazza;  in 
spite  of  Querini's  protest  Morosini  insisted  upon 
searching  him ;  Querini  knocked  him  down,  and  was, 
of  course,  fined  heavily.  Matters  were  approaching 
a  crisis. 

But  the  real  difficulty  of  the  old  nobility  lay  in  the 
want  of  a  leader.  After  holding  several  meetings  at 
the  house  of  Marco  Querini,  they  determined  to  invite 

1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol  iii.  p.  27. 

1  This  was  the  picturesque  name  for  the  three  heads  of  the  police 
patrol  in  Venice.  "  II  diavolo  che  attendava  alia  rovina  di  questo 
governo  porse  in  animo  a  Marco  Morosini,  Signore  di  Notte,  di  voler 
sapere  se  Pietro  Querini  della  casa  Grande,  fratello  di  Messier  Marco, 
aveva  armi ;  et  accostandosi  a  lui  li  disse ;  lasciati  cercare ;  perci6 
lui  irato  getto  per  terra  esso  Morosini "  (Marco  Barbaro,  Chronicle, 
quoted  by  Rom.  loc.  cit.  sup.}. 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  BAJAMONTE          69 

Bajamonte  Tiepolo,1  the  son-in-law  of  Marco,  to  come 
to  Venice  and  head  the  party.  He  was  the  grandson 
of  the  Doge  Lorenzo  Tiepolo  and  Marchesina,  daughter 
of  Boemond  of  Brienne,  King  of  Servia.  He  was, 
therefore,  great-grandnephew  of  John  of  Brienne,  the 
Emperor  of  Constantinople  and  King  of  Jerusalem. 
In  the  year  1300  he  had  been  condemned  for  peculation 
in  one  of  the  governments  he  had  held.  But  execution 
of  the  sentence  was  postponed,  and  two  years  later 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
Quarantia.2  But  in  the  same  year  he  withdrew  to  his 

1  Bartolo  Tiepolo,  1062. 
Marco,  1137. 

Giacomo,  doge,  m.  Gualdrada, 

dr.  of  Tancred  of  Sicily. 


Lorenzo,  doge,  m.  Marchesina  of  Brienne. 
Jacopo  dello  Scopulo. 

Bajamonte. 

See   Litta,  Famig.  celebri  Italians,  in  voce   Tiepolo ;  Bullettino  di 
Arti  e  Curiosita  Veneziane,  ann.  iv.  nos.  3-4,  1895  ;  Laurentius  de 
Monads,  Chronicon,  lib.  xiv.  p.  274  ;  Roman,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  294  ; 
Cronaca  Veneta,  da  Canal,  cap.  cclxiii.  note  351. 
*  Archivio  di  Stato,  Venice. 

Magnus.     M.  C.  Delib.  fol.  8. 

1300. 

Die.  xvj  Junij.  Cum  ser  Baimonte  Teupulo  condam  Castellanus 
Coroni  et  Mothoni  acceperit  de  peccunia  Comunis  yperpera 
mmccxxij.  ultra  suum  salarium  et  poneretur  pars  utrum 
videretur  quod  ipse  accepisset  dictam  peccuniam  contra  suam 
commissionem  vel  non,  Capta  fuit  pars  de  sic.  Et  fuerunt 
cxxvij.  de  sic,  decem  de  non,  cxxvij.  non  sinceris. 
Ego  Thomas  Viadro.  manu  mea  subscripsi.  Ego  Marinus  Mauroceno 
m.  m.  ff.  Ego  Jacobus  Baruci  m.  m.  ff.  Ego  Rubertus  Teupulo  m.  m.  ff. 
Ego  Petrus  ducatus  Veneciarum  scriba  de  mandato  dictorum 
dominorum  suprascripta  duo  consilia  cancellavi. 

Magnus.     M.  C.  Delib.  fol.  15. 

1301. 

vj.  Junij.  Capta  fuit  pars  quod  fiat  gratia  nobili  viro  Baiamonti 
Teupulo  condam  Castellano  Corone  et  Modhone  quod  solvat 


70  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

villa  of  Marocco,1  near  Mestre,  where  he  remained  until 
1310,  when  the  invitation  of  his  brother  nobles  reached 
him.  He  readily  answered  their  appeal,  and  his  arrival 
in  Venice  was  of  the  greatest  service  to  his  party.  For 
Bajamonte  was  a  man  of  strong,  impetuous,  and 
decided  character,  the  owner  of  vast  wealth  and  of 
an  almost  unbounded  popularity  with  the  people,  who 
called  him  the  gran  cavaliere;2  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  connected  with  most  of  the  noble  families 
who  were  strenuously  opposing  the  new  aristocracy. 

On  the  arrival  of  Bajamonte  the  ferment  of  dis- 
content was  precipitated.  Meetings  were  held  at  the 
house  of  Marco  Querini,  in  which  the  hopes  and 
designs  of  the  party  were  discussed,  and  steps  taken 
to  achieve  them.  Marco  himself  led  the  way,  dwelling 
bitterly  on  the  ruin  which  the  new  aristocracy  had 
brought  upon  the  state,  urging  the  dangers  of  the 
Ferrarese  war  and  the  horrors  of  the  excommunica- 
tion. But  above  all  he  insisted  on  the  injustice  of  the 

totum  capitale  pecunia  per  eum  accepte  in  Corona  et  Modhona 
hinc  ad  tres  annos  isto  modo  videlicet  statim  nonam  partem 
solvat  nostro  communi,  et  in  fine  iiij.  mensium  aliam  nonam 
partem  dicti  capitalis,  et  sic  deinceps  in  fine  quorum  libet 
quattuor  mensium  solvat  nonam  partem  quousque  erit  dictum 
capitale  plenarie  solutum  totum  sub  pena  solidorum  v  pro 
libra  pro  quolibet  termino  non  observato  et  de  sic  observando 
det  ydoneum  plegariam  ad  voluntatem  domini  ducis. 
Ego  Nicolo  Arimodo  manu  mea  subscripsi.  Ego  Franciscus 
Dandulo.  m.  m.  ff.  Ego  Marinus  laletro.  m.  m.  ff.  Ego  Justinianus 

Justiniano.  m.  m.  ff.     Ego  Henricus  Michael  m.  m.  ff. 
Nota    quod    die   vij.   Junij    Nobiles  viri   domini   Michael  Teupulo, 
Franciscus  Longo,  Jacobus  quirino  de  domo  maiori ;  Petrus  Causoni, 
Paulus  de  Musto,  et  Marcus  giani  fuerunt  et  steterunt  omnes  plecjj 
et  proprij  appacatores  in  toto  et  in  parte  pro  dicto  domino  Baiamonte, 
quod  observabit  secundum  partem  predictam. 
Ego  Johannes  Calderarius  notarius  de  mandato  .  .  .  suprascripta  die. 

Caresini,  Contin.  Chron.  And.  Dand.  p.  492,  ap.  Murator.  Rer.  It. 
Scrip,  xii. ;  Vianoli,  Hist.  Venct.  (Venetia  :  1680),  lib.  xii. 

1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  p.  28. 

8  Navagero,  St,  Venez.  ad  ann.  1310,  ap.  Murat.  Rer.  It. 
Scrip,  xxiii. 


THE  PLOT  71 

act  that  closed  the  Great  Council,  whereby  many  noble 
and  virtuous  citizens  were  excluded  from  all  share  in 
the  government  of  the  state.     Bajamonte  followed  his 
father-in-law,  enforcing  his  argument  and  urging  im- 
mediate action.     He  concluded  thus  :    "  Let  us  leave, 
let  us  leave  words  on  one  side  now,  and  come  to  deeds. 
Let  us  place  a  good  prince  at  the  head  of  this  state ; 
one  who  shall  be  acceptable  to  all  classes,  beloved  by 
the  people,  ready  so   to   act  that  our  city  may  be 
restored  to  her  ancient  ordinances,  that  public  free- 
dom  may  be  preserved  and  increased."    Tiepolo  ex- 
pressed  the  general  feeling.     The   party  was   eager 
for  action ;  but  Jacopo  Querini,  the  oldest  and  most 
cautious  of  their  number,  now  rose  to  counsel  modera- 
tion.    He  implored  them  to  move  by  constitutional, 
not  by  revolutionary  steps ;  he  warned  them  not  to 
trust  the  people  for  support ; l  while,  fully  recognizing 
the  unendurable  position  in  which  they  were  placed 
by  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council,  he  insisted  that 
this  should  be  corrected  by  legal,  not  by  illegal  and 
violent  measures.     But  the  nobles  felt  that  the  advice 
of  Jacopo  Querini  came  too  late.      Pacific  measures 
were  out  of  the   question.     The  speech  of  Tiepolo 
indicated  the  lines  on  which  they  must  act.     Nothing 
remained  but  to  develop  the  plot.     The  conspirators 
agreed  that  the  doge  should  be  attacked  in  his  palace, 
and  that  he  and  as  many  as  possible  of  the  new  aris- 
tocracy should   be  slain.     One  of  their  own   party, 
Badoer  Badoer,  was  sent  to  Padua,  with  instructions 
to   bring  with  him  all  the  men  he  could  induce  to 
help  in   the  attack.     They  fixed  on  June   15   as  the 
day  for  the  execution  of  their  design.     The  associates 
were  to  meet  in  the  house  of  Querini  on  the  evening 
of  the  1 4th,  a  Sunday. 

1  "  Sperate  aver  il  popolo  favorevole  ?  ma  il  popolo,  come  a  tutti 
e  noto,  e  cosa  vana  ed  instabile."  A  true  warning  as  it  proved, 
though  I  doubt  whether  the  sentiment  is  of  the  epoch.  See  Cronaca, 
Barbaro,  quoted  by  Rom.  vol.  iii.  p.  31  ;  also  Vianoli,  Hist.  Venet, 
(Venetia  :  1680),  lib.  xii. 


72  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

The  evening  came  and  the  nobles  assembled.  So 
far  these  meetings  had  been  conducted  with  the  utmost 
secrecy.  But  now  information  was  brought  to  the 
doge1  that  there  was  an  unusual  and  suspicious  stir 
about  the  houses  of  the  Querini  and  in  all  the  quarter 
beyond  the  Rialto.  Gradenigo  at  first  refused  to  believe 
that  this  movement  had  any  significance,  but  he 
thought  it  prudent  to  send  three  members  of  the 
government  to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  the  report. 
The  officials  were  met  with  drawn  swords  whenever 
they  crossed  the  Rialto,  and  were  forced  to  fly  for 
their  lives.  The  doge  grasped  the  situation  at  once, 
and  lost  no  time.  He  sent  messengers  to  the  podesta 
of  Chioggia,  and  to  the  governors  of  Murano,  Burano, 
and  Torcello,  demanding  their  aid.  The  officers  of 
state,  the  Consiglieri,  the  Avvogadori,  the  Signori  di 
Notte,  were  summoned  to  the  palace  armed.  The 
town  on  St.  Mark's  side  of  the  canal  was  roused  from 
its  sleep — for  the  night  had  already  far  advanced 
towards  morning — and  all  good  citizens  were  called 
upon  to  march  to  the  piazza,  there  to  defend  the  doge 
and  the  state.2  These  measures,  rapidly  as  they  were 
carried  out,  occupied  some  time,  and  the  day  was 
already  dawning.  In  the  dim  twilight,  and  under 
a  threatening  sky,  the  doge  and  his  company  left  the 
ducal  palace  and  descended  into  the  piazza.  There 
guards  were  stationed  at  the  mouths  of  the  different 
streets  that  opened  on  the  square,  while  the  main 
body  was  drawn  up  in  the  piazza  itself,  eagerly 
expecting  help  from  Chioggia,  and  waiting  the  event. 

Meantime,  on  the  other  side  of  the  canal,  affairs  had 
nearly  reached  the  climax.  The  piazza,  then  as  now 
the  heart  of  the  city,  was  the  point  at  which  Tiepolo 
intended  to  aim  his  blow.  The  conspirators  had 
determined  to  divide  their  forces.  One  body,  under 
Bajamonte,  was  to  march  through  the  Merceria 

1   The  traitor  was   Marco   Donate,   who  had  at  first  joined  the 
conspiracy. 
3  Laurentius  de  Mon.  op,  cit.  lib.  xiv.  p.  275. 


THE  RISING  73 

emerging  on  the  piazza,  by  the  street  where  the  clock 
tower  now  stands ;  the  other,  under  Marco  Querini, 
was  to  find  its  way  to  the  same  point  by  the  Ponte  di 
Malpasso.1  All  was  ready  for  the  start,  when  a  violent 
storm  broke  over  Venice ;  wind,  thunder,  lightning, 
and  rain  descending  in  torrents.  The  storm  seemed 
ominous  and  terrified  Tiepolo's  followers.  He  delayed 
his  departure,  hoping  that  it  might  pass  by,  and,  in 
order  to  amuse  and  occupy  his  company,  he  gave 
them  permission  to  sack  the  offices  of  the  police 
magistrates  and  the  corn  exchange. 

But  the  rain  did  not  cease,  and  precious  time  could 
not  be  wasted  indefinitely.  Too  much  had  been  lost 
already;  help  was  on  its  way  for  the  doge;  every 
instant  lessened  the  chances  of  success.  The  con- 
spirators crossed  the  Rialto.  But  they  soon  found, 
as  they  advanced,  that  they  had  miscalculated  the 
temper  of  the  people.  Each  step  towards  the  piazza 
showed  the  populace  to  be  more  and  more  hostile. 
The  vigour  and  calmness  of  the  doge  had  overawed 
those  who  were  immediately  within  his  reach,  and 
had  counselled  them  to  be  on  that  side  which  their 
instinct  told  them  was  the  winning  one.  But  more 
than  that,  the  present  rebellion  was  the  protest  of 
the  nobles  against  the  Serrata,  as  that  of  Bocconio 
had  been  the  popular  protest.  The  latter  had  failed, 
and  the  people  were  not  prepared  to  try  their 
fortune  again.  Perhaps  they  were  more  than  doubtful 
whether  the  success  of  Tiepolo  would  really  restore 
to  them  their  lost  rights.  However  that  might  be, 
the  conspirators  found  no  support,  no  signs  of  a  rising 
in  their  favour.  In  accordance  with  the  plan  agreed 
upon,  they  divided  into  two  companies.  By  some 
miscalculation  Quirini  arrived  at  the  piazza  first.  As 
he  debouched  upon  the  square,  the  doge's  troops 
charged  with  the  cry  of  "  Ah  !  traditore ;  ammazza ! 
ammazza ! "  Marco  and  his  two  sons  were  instantly 
killed  and  his  followers  routed  before  Tiepolo  could 
1  Now  the  Ponte  de  Dai. 


74  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

come  to  his  assistance.  A  like  defeat  awaited  him. 
As  he  passed  along  the  Merceria,  a  woman  hurled 
a  mortar  from  a  balcony,1  which  slew  Bajamonte's 
standard-bearer,  who  was  marching  in  the  van  with 
a  banner  on  which  was  embroidered  the  word  "  Liberty." 
A  few  moments  later,  Tiepolo  himself  and  his  followers 
were  flying  from  the  piazza  in  confusion,  to  seek  safety 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Rialto.  They  broke  down  the 
bridge  and  destroyed  the  boats,  and  thus  gained  for 
themselves  a  breathing  space.  They  were  still  in 
considerable  force;  and  if  Badoer  had  arrived  from 
Padua,  it  might  yet  have  been  possible  for  them  to  make 
some  head  against  the  doge.  The  news,  however,  that 
Badoer  with  his  boats  had  run  aground  in  the  lagoon, 
where  the  podestd  of  Chioggia  had  captured  him  and  all 
his  men,  dashed  that  hope.  The  game  had  been  played 
and  lost.  Nothing  remained  but  to  make  such  terms 
as  they  could  with  Gradenigo  and  his  victorious  party. 
The  leniency  of  the  conditions  offered  by  the  doge 
proves  how  unwilling  the  new  aristocracy  were  to 
push  their  victory  too  hard.  All  the  citizens  who  had 
followed  Tiepolo  were  allowed  to  make  their  peace 
by  swearing  allegiance  to  the  doge  and  the  constitu- 
tion. The  heads  of  the  conspiracy  were  banished 
for  four  years  to  certain  definite  localities ;  but  all  of 
them,  including  their  chief,  broke  their  confines,  in 
spite  of  the  declaration  that  in  that  case  their  property 
would  be  treated  "sicut  de  proditoribus  et  rebellibus."2 
This  violation  of  their  bounds  resulted  in  a  decree  of 

1  Cicogna  {Iscrizioni  Veneziane,  torn.  iii.  p.  30)  doubts  whether 
the  mortar  was  flung  on  purpose  or  was  pushed  over  by  accident.  He 
gives  the  name  of  the  woman  as  Lucia,  but  Cecchetti  (Arch.  Ven. 
torn.  xxv.  p.  144)  has  established  the  fact  that  she  was  called  Maria 
de  Oltise.  The  doge  Gradenigo  offered  to  reward  her,  but  she 
declined  any  recognition  of  her  service  save  the  right  to  hang  the 
standard  of  St.  Mark  from  her  window  on  St.  Vitus'  Day  and  on  other 
solemn  occasions,  and  a  promise  that  her  rent,  of  fifteen  ducats  a  year, 
should  never  be  raised.  See  Molmenti,  Vita  Privata,  part  i.  p.  104. 

1  Sanudo,  Vite  dei  Duchi,  p.  586,  ap.  Murat.  Rer.  It.  Script. 
torn.  xxii.  ;  Bullettino^  op,  cit.  p.  34. 


THE  END  OF  BAJAMONTE  75 

perpetual  exile  against  Tiepolo,  and  the  confiscation 
of  all  his  goods.  The  houses  of  the  Tiepolo  were 
razed,1  and  the  family  arms  of  both  the  Tiepolo  and 
Querini  were  cancelled.2 

Tiepolo  was  banished  in  perpetuity,  and,  for  the 
years  that  remained  to  him,  he  flitted  like  an  unlaid 
ghost  round  the  borders  of  his  native  land.  From 
Dalmatia,  from  Padua,  from  Treviso,  he  looked  towards 
Venice,  and  sighed  for  the  campi,  the  contrade,  the 
water-ways  of  that  home  no  longer  his.  But  each  sigh 
was  a  menace  to  the  new  party  now  consolidating 
itself  on  the  ruins  of  the  older  nobility.  The  govern- 
ment was  never  at  rest  for  a  moment  while  the 
spectral  form  of  Tiepolo  remained  unburied.  We  find 
proposals  for  an  amnesty  to  be  extended  to  him, 
invitations  to  him  to  return.  These  may  have  been 
ruses  to  get  him  into  their  power — we  cannot  tell ; 
in  any  case,  they  were  not  accepted.  Bajamonte  is 
the  centre  of  innumerable  plots,  all  doomed  to  failure ; 
but  he  could  not  abandon  them  while  he  lived.  He 
was  the  spirit  of  the  old  aristocracy  that  would  not 
cease  to  hope  as  long  as  there  was  breath.  In  the 
year  1311  we  find  him  conspiring  at  Padua3;  later 

1  Arch,  di  S/a/o,  Maggior  Consiglio,  Presbiter,  fol.  22  v°.  1310, 
die  xxv.  julii.  "  Item  quod  domus  quondam  Baiamontis  Teupulo 
proditoris  diruinetur." 

*  The  Querini  bore  per  fesse  azure  and  gules  ;  the  Tiepolo,  azure, 
a  castle  of  three  towers,  argent.  See  Coronelli,  Blazone  Veneto,  and 
Freschot,  La  Nobilita  Veneta  ;  Commem.  lib.  i.  Nos.  435,  448  ; 
Laurentius,  op.  cit.  lib.  xiv.  p.  227,  where  a  list  of  the  conspirators 
is  given,  together  with  their  places  of  exile  ;  And.  Dand.  Chronicon> 
p.  410,  ap.  Murat.  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  xii.  ;  Caresini,  Contin.  Chron. 
Dand.  pp.  490,  491,  492,  where  the  sentences  are  recorded  ;  also 
see  p.  483  for  the  letters  of  Gradenigo  recounting  the  conspiracy. 

3  Laurentius,  loc.  cit.  pp.  277,  278  ;  Commem.  lib.  i.  No.  476,  1876. 
Tiepolo  tried  to  interest  some  of  the  family  of  Carrara  in  his  designs. 
Scrovegno,  on  their  behalf,  went  so  far  as  to  promise  him  eight 
hundred  men.  Venice  was  seriously  alarmed,  and  increased  the 
guards  on  the  lagoon  shores  at  San  Giuliano.  But  the  scheme  fell 
through  (Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  pp.  43,  44  ;  Verci,  St.  della  Marca 
Trivigiana^  vol.  viii.  doc.  862,  ann.  1318,  Feb.  21). 


76  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

he  is  hunted  from  Treviso.  In  1322  the  Ten  offer 
a  sum  for  his  capture  in  Dalmatia.  In  1328  the  doge 
is  imperatively  ordered  to  take  steps  to  secure  his 
person,  if  possible  ;  but  he  escaped  his  enemies  to 
the  very  last,  and,  on  the  point  of  falling  into  their 
hands,  he  died. 

Tiepolo  died,  and  with  him  died  the  old  nobility 
as  a  dominant  party  in  the  state.  He  and  it  were 
killed  by  the  new  aristocracy.  Tiepolo's  object  had 
been  to  preserve  the  old  constitution  of  Venice ;  for 
in  it  he  and  his  order,  by  long  prescriptive  right  of 
birth  and  rule,  were  powerful.  But  this  party  failed  to 
make  common  cause  with  the  people,  they  neglected 
to  win  their  confidence,  and  they  went  down  before 
the  younger  and  stronger  order.  Had  Tiepolo  suc- 
ceeded, it  is  not  impossible  that  Venice  might  have 
developed  a  constitutional  government  based  on  the 
three  estates  of  prince,  nobles,  and  people ;  but  it 
was  not  given  to  her  to  escape  the  tendency  which 
was  bringing  all  Italy  under  the  power  of  individual 
families  of  despots. 

The  new  aristocracy  triumphed  and  proceeded  to 
follow  unimpeded  the  law  of  its  growth.  Externally 
the  government  of  the  city  was  crystallized  after  the 
fall  of  Tiepolo.  A  full  police  system  was  developed — 
the  patrols  for  the  streets,  the  guards  for  the  canals, 
the  piazza,  and  the  palazzo  ducale.  A  native  militia 
was  raised  by  a  levy  of  five  hundred  men  from  each 
of  the  six  quarters  of  the  city.1  But  freedom  was 
not  in  the  nature  of  the  new  aristocracy ;  its  essence 
was  opposed  to  liberty,  and  so  it  was  doomed  in  turn 
to  submit  to  itself  as  its  own  most  tyrannous  master. 
The  danger  it  had  just  escaped  was  so  great  that,  for 
its  own  immediate  safety,  it  had  recourse  to  a  dictator. 
But  following  the  inherent  bent  in  the  Venetian 
political  constitution,  that  dictator  was  not  an  indi- 

1  Rom.  op.  tit.  vol.  iii.  p.  40;  Comment,  lib.  i.  July,  1310, 
Nos.  438, 439  ;  Marin.  op.  tit.  vol.  v.  p.  320,  doc.  ii.  "  Provisions  for 
the  Defence  of  Venice." 


THE  CREATION   OF  THE  TEN  77 

vidual,  but  a  committee,  a  college.  The  Council  of 
Ten  was  appointed  to  examine  the  causes  and  to  trace 
the  ramifications  of  the  Tiepoline  conspiracy.  Its 
tenure  of  office  was  limited  at  first  to  a  few  days,  then 
extended  to  two  months,  then  to  five  years ;  finally  it 
was  declared  permanent,  July  20,  1335,  and  became 
the  lord,  the  Signore,  the  tyrant  of  Venice1 — more 
terrible  than  any  personal  despot,  because  impalpable, 
impervious  to  the  dagger  of  the  assassin.  It  was  no 
concrete  despotism,  but  the  very  essence  of  tyranny. 
To  seek  its  overthrow  was  vain.  Those  who  strove 
to  wrestle  with  it  clasped  empty  air ;  they  struck  at 
it,  but  the  blow  was  wasted  on  space.  Evasive  and 
pervasive,  this  dark,  inscrutable  body  ruled  Venice 
with  a  rod  of  iron.  For  good  or  for  bad  the  Council 
of  Ten  was  the  very  child  of  the  new  aristocracy, 
which  had  won  its  battle  against  both  the  people  and 
the  old  nobility.  The  victorious  party  breathed  and 
their  breath  became  the  Ten,  and  it  is  the  Ten  which 
determined  the  internal  aspect  of  Venice  for  the 
remainder  of  her  existence. 

Such  is  the  reading  of  events  which  facts  seem  to 
warrant.  But,  in  the  dense  obscurity  which  hangs 
over  all  that  might  indicate  beyond  a  doubt  the  true 
relations  of  the  old  aristocracy,  the  new  party  and 
the  people,  it  has  to  be  admitted  that  a  somewhat 
different  view  is  possible.  It  might  be  argued  that  the 

1  Rom.  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  cap.  iii.  ;  Giannotti,  Delia  Rep,  d.  Venez. 
(Firenze  :  1850),  pp.  122-4;  Sanudo,  op.  cit.  p.  586;  Baschet,  Les 
Archives  de  Venise  (Paris:  1870),  p.  514.  It  is  shown  by  the 
researches  of  Sig.  Cecchetti  that  in  all  probability  a  Council  of  Ten 
did  exist  before  the  year  1310.  But  it  is  certain  that  that  year  saw 
the  creation  of  the  Ten  as  the  power  which  was  destined  to  rule 
Venice.  See  Dell'  Istituz.  d.  Magist.  d.  Rep.  Cecchetti  (Venezia : 
1865).  And  popular  tradition  was  right  when  it  fixed  the  date  in  the 
well-known  rhyme — 

Del  mille  tresento  e  diese 
A  mezzo  el  mese  delle  ceriese 
Bagiamonte  passo  el  ponte  (the  Rialto). 
E  per  esso  fo  fatto  el  consegio  di  diese. 


78  BAJAMONTE  TIEPOLO 

episode  was  nothing  more  than  a  struggle  between  a 
primo  and  a  secondo popolo,  in  which  the  people,  properly 
so  called,  had  little  or  no  interest;  that  the  issue 
lay  between  an  old  semi-feudal  nobility  and  a  wealthy 
middle  class,  eager  to  seize  the  reins  of  government ; 
that  each  party  was  running  a  selfish  race  for  the 
mastery  in  the  state,  and  that  a  species  of  tyranny 
was  inevitable,  whichever  won.  It  might  be  possible 
to  maintain  that  the  apparition,  the  struggle,  and  the 
triumph  of  the  new  nobility  was  only  one  step  in  a 
necessary  evolution ;  that  the  victory  brought  with 
it  not  the  element  of  death,  but  just  that  quality  of 
rigid  stability  which  preserved  Venice  longer  than  her 
sister  Italian  states.  What  remains,  however,  as  im- 
portant to  Venetian  history  in  this  period  is  that 
the  Tiepoline  conspiracy  marks  the  point  at  which 
the  central  element  in  the  government  was  fixed. 
From  that  moment  Venice  appears  with  the  peculiar 
constitution  which,  for  better  or  for  worse,  was  to 
distinguish  her  from  the  rest  of  Italy. 


Marino  Falier 

OF  the  two  great  conspiracies  which  shook  the  state 
of  Venice — the  conspiracy  of  Bajamonte  Tiepolo  and 
the  conspiracy  of  Marino  Falier — the  latter  has  attracted 
by  far  the  larger  share  of  attention,  and  has  taken  its 
place  permanently  as  one  of  the  stirring  episodes  in 
the  annals  of  the  Republic.  This,  no  doubt,  is  largely 
due  to  the  dramatic  character  of  the  story  as  currently 
told.  The  fiery  old  warrior  doge,  insulted  in  the 
honour  of  his  wife  by  a  ribald  young  noble,  exasperated 
against  the  whole  body  of  the  Venetian  aristocracy  by 
the  inadequate  punishment  meted  out  to  his  offender, 
conceived  the  idea  of  murderous  revenge,  and  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  conspiracy — fomented  chiefly 
among  the  middle  and  lower  classes — to  slaughter  the 
entire  governing  caste.  The  plot  was  discovered  only 
just  in  time,  and  the  doge  and  his  accomplices  paid  the 
penalty  with  their  lives.  The  thrilling  spectacle  of 
the  black  veil  over  the  place  where  the  doge's  portrait 
should  be,  in  the  Sala  del  Maggior  Consiglio,  has 
helped  to  fix  the  attention  and  rouse  the  curiosity  of 
thousands  of  tourists.  Byron l  fastened  upon  the  story 
and  made  it  the  subject  of  his  finest  play,  though  he 
misreads  the  intention  of  the  doge,  painting  him  as  a 
friend  of  liberty,  anxious  to  free  the  people  from  the 
intolerable  tyranny  of  the  oligarchy,  and  importing 

1  Byron  claims  to  have  carefully  studied  the  sources  and  maintains 
the  historical  value  of  his  view  ;  it  is  curious,  however,  to  note  that 
he  could  write  thus  about  the  famous  statue  of  Bartolomeo  Colleoni : 
"  The  equestrian  statue  of  which  I  have  made  mention  in  the  third  act 
is  not,  however,  of  a  Faliero,  but  of  some  other  now  obsolete  warrior, 
although  of  a  later  date." 

79 


8o  MARINO  FALIER 

into  his  drama  modern  ideas  quite  foreign  to  the 
period.  It  happens  therefore  that  the  story  of  Marino 
Falier's  conspiracy  occupies  a  larger  place  in  popular 
imagination  than  does  the  conspiracy  of  Tiepolo, 
though  the  one  created  the  Council  of  Ten  while  the 
other  merely  demonstrated  its  supremacy. 

Marin  Sanudo,  in  the  Lives  of  the  Doges,1  has, 
hitherto,  been  the  principal  authority  for  the  story  as 
related  by  most  modern  historians,  and  though  recent 
criticism  has  rejected  as  legendary  many  of  the  more 
striking  episodes,  still  we  shall  see  by  a  comparison 
of  the  current  and  the  critical  accounts  that,  after  all, 
the  proverb  is  justified  which  says,  "  There's  aye  some 
water  where  they  say  the  stirkie  was  droun'd."  The 
larger  part  of  Sanudo's  tale  is  based,  he  says,  upon  "  an 
ancient  chronicle,"  which  has  not  yet  been  identified. 
It  is  from  Sanudo  that  we  get  the  picturesque  touches 
— unrecorded  by  any  contemporary  document — of  the 
blow  administered  to  the  Bishop  of  Treviso,  who  kept 
Falier  waiting  when  he  was  governor  of  the  city ;  of 
the  landing  in  the  fog ;  of  Steno's  insolent  conduct  to 
one  of  the  dogaressa's  maids-of-honour  at  a  ball  in  the 
ducal  palace ;  of  his  expulsion  by  order  of  the  doge ; 
of  the  revenge  he  took  by  scribbling  on  the  ducal 
throne  the  ribald  lines:2 

Doge  Marin  Falier 

Has  a  wife  that  is  fair ; 

He  pays  the  bill, 

Other  fellows  take  their  fill. 

It  is  Sanudo,  too,  who  tells  us  of  the  mild  punish- 
ment3 inflicted  on  Steno,  and  the  doge's  indignation 
at  this  slight  to  his  person  ;  of  the  quarrel  between  a 
gentleman  of  the  Barbaro  family  and  one  of  the  arsenal 
hands  who  sought  redress  from  the  doge ;  of  Falier's 

1  Muratori,  Rer.  ItaL  Script,  torn.  xxii. 

2  "  Marin  Falier  doxe  da  la  bela  moier,  altri  la  galde  et  lu  la  mantien." 
8  Sanudo  gives  two  versions  of  the  penalty :  (i)  two  months'  im- 
prisonment and  banishment  for  a  year  ;  (2)  a  few  days'  imprisonment, 
a  few  strokes  with  a  fox's  tail,  and  a  fine  of  one  hundred  lire. 


THE  AUTHORITIES  81 

bitter  protest  that  he  was  impotent  in  face  of  the  insolent 
aristocracy.  It  is  Sanudo  who  gives  us  the  conversation 
which  followed,  and  the  suggestion  that  the  doge,  with 
the  help  of  the  arsenal  hands,  should  make  himself 
lord  of  Venice,  cut  the  nobles  to  pieces,  and  so  avenge 
both  insults.  For  the  rest  of  the  story,  Sanudo  agrees 
with  the  earlier  and  better  authorities. 

These  authorities  have  recently  been  most  carefully 
examined,  compared,  and  arranged  in  order  of  value 
by  Signor  Vittorio  Lazzarini  in  a  work l  which  is  no 
doubt  the  final  word  on  the  narrative  of  the  Marino 
Falier  conspiracy.  Following  Signor  Lazzarini,  we 
may  take  these  authorities  in  the  following  order : 
(i)  official  documents ;  (2)  inedited  contemporary 
evidence ;  (3)  published  Venetian  chronicles,  con- 
temporary or  nearly  so ;  (4)  foreign  contemporary 
evidence ;  (5)  later  chronicles. 

Naturally  we  turn  first  to  the  archives  at  the  Frari 
and  to  the  documents  of  the  Council  of  Ten,  the 
tribunal  that  tried  and  sentenced  the  doge.  The 
papers  relating  to  the  epoch  of  Marino  Falier  are 
contained  in  the  series  marked  Misti,  reg.  (f},  the 
volume  being  really  volume  5,  numbered  4  in  error. 
There  on  the  recto  of  folio  33,  between  the  documents 
of  April  8,  1355,  and  the  election  of  officers  for  the 
month  of  May — that  is  to  say,  in  the  place  where  the 
documents  relating  to  the  conspiracy  should  have 
appeared — we  find  a  blank  space  with  "Non  scribatur" 
twice  written  on  the  margin.  This  phrase,  "  be  it  not 
written,"  has  given  rise  to  fanciful  conjectures  on  the 
part  of  such  good  scholars  as  Romanin  and  Rawdon 
Brown.  "  Unonorevole  pudor,"  writes  Romanin,  "forse 
ritenne  quei  giudici  dallo  scrivere  il  nome  del  capo 
della  repubblica";2  and  Rawdon  Brown  supposes  that 
the  marginal  note  indicates  some  unusual  procedure 

1  Marino  Falier o>  la  Congiura  (Venezia :  Visentini,  1897).  I  must 
here  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  Signor  Lazzarini's  masterly 
study. 

3  Romanin,  op.  tit.  vol.  iv.  p.  312. 

VOL.    I.  6 


82  MARINO   FALTER 

on  the  part  of  the  Ten.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  "  Non 
scribatur "  is  a  common  formula  of  the  Venetian 
chancellery  indicating  that  the  space  opposite  the 
marginal  note  was  to  be  left  blank  for  the  reception 
of  documents  not  yet  ready  for  registration.  Had 
"  Non  scribatur "  meant  that  the  space  was  to  be  left 
blank  permanently,  the  words  would  naturally  have 
been  written  in  the  centre  of  the  space  and  not  in 
margin.  The  fact  that  "Non  scribatur"  is  repeated 
twice  indicates  that  two  documents  were  to  have  been 
inserted,  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  these 
documents  referred  to  the  case  of  Marino  Falier.  It  is 
more  probable  that  the  whole  of  the  papers  relating 
to  the  conspiracy  were  collected  in  a  separate  volume. 
This  conjecture  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  in  the 
margin  of  a  decree  of  the  Ten1  dated  January  13,  1355-6, 
providing  that  the  sentences  in  the  Falier  case  shall 
never  be  revoked,  we  find  the  phrase  "  Ponatur  in 
libro  processuum  ";  and  in  a  marginal  note  to  the  decree 
of  May  7,  1355,  instituting  the  procession  on  Saint 
Isidore's  day,  we  read  the  signs  "  M.F.  c.  5,"  in  all 
probability  referring  to  fol.  5  of  this  book  thus 
indicated  by  the  initials  of  Marino  Falier's  name.2 
The  "  book  of  the  trials  "  is  now  unfortunately  lost, 
and  the  papers  of  the  Council  of  Ten  tell  us  next  to 
nothing  about  the  most  remarkable  case  that  ever 
came  before  that  court. 

But  as  regards  the  episode  of  Steno's  insult  to  the 
doge  which  contributed  to  precipitate  the  conspiracy, 
thanks  to  the  industry  of  Sanudo,  we  have  the  copy3  of 
several  cases  heard  before  the  Avvogadori  di  Commun, 
which,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  narrate  the 
events  of  the  conspiracy,  give  us  the  true  version  of 
the  Steno  episode.  This  is  all  that  can  be  found  in 
the  archives  at  the  Frari. 

Among  the  contemporary  inedited  evidence  the  first 

1  Archiv.  di  Stato>  Cons.  x. :  Misti,  reg.  5,  foL  44  v°. 
'  Archiv.  di  Stato,  Cons.  x. ;  Misti,  reg.  5,  fol.  44  v*. 
*  Archiv.  di  Stato,  Miscellanea,  cod.  N.  678. 


THE  AUTHORITIES  83 

place  undoubtedly  belongs  to  the  chronicle  of  Nicolo 
Trevisan  *  of  Sant'  Angelo,  who  was  one  of  the  Ten 
when  the  doge  was  tried  and  executed.2  He  was 
subsequently  governor  of  Crete ;  and  died  Procurator 
of  San  Marco  in  1369.  Apart  from  the  fact  that 
Trevisan  was  a  contemporary  and  also  an  actor  in 
the  drama,  his  account  commands  attention  by  its 
accuracy  and  its  sobriety.  Following  Trevisan,  we 
have  the  contemporary  chronicle  of  Pietro  Giustinian 3 
(1360).  An  anonymous  chronicler4  writing  in  1396 
adds  some  further  facts;  while  the  chronicle  of  Antonio 
Morosini5  gives  us  one  important  passage  as  to  the 
cause  of  the  conspiracy. 

Of  published  Venetian  evidence  the  most  valuable 
is  the  chronicle  of  Lorenzo  de  Monads.6  Lorenzo 
was  a  scholar,  a  poet,  an  historian,  a  statesman,  having 
served  as  Grand  Chancellor  in  Crete,  and  his  narrative 
is  full  and  convincing;  unfortunately,  however,  it  stops 
abruptly  in  the  very  middle  of  the  story  of  Falier's 
conspiracy.  Rafaino  Caresini,  Notary  Ducal  at  the 
time,  and  afterwards  Grand  Chancellor  of  the  Republic,7 
who  probably  knew  the  truth,  hardly  mentions  the 
subject,  restrained  no  doubt  by  the  delicacy  of  his 
position  as  an  official.  Among  the  foreign  evidence 
we  get  two  contemporaries — Petrarch,  who  knew 
Falier  intimately,  "vir  ab  olim  mihi  familiariter  notus,"8 
and  Matteo  Villani,  who  seems  to  have  had  sound 
information  from  some  contemporary  correspondent 
in  Venice. 

Finally,  among  later  writers  who  treat  of  the  Falier 
conspiracy  we  have  Sabellico's  De  Vitis  Principum ; 

Bib.  Marciana,  cl.  xi.  Ital.  cod.  xxxii. 

"  Di  Diexe  io  posso  assai  rendere  testimonianza,"  he  says  himself. 

Bib.  Marctana,  cl.  x.  Lat.  cod.  xxxvi. 

Bib.  Marriana.)  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmli. 

Bib.  Marciana,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmxlviii. 

Laurentii    de    Monacis,   Chronica   de  rebus    Venetis   (Venetiis  : 
Remondini,  1759). 
7  Muratori,  RR.  II.  SS.  xii.  423. 
*  Petrarch,  Epistola  Famil.  lib.  xix.  ep.  xi.  "  Rumores  italicos." 


84  MARINO   FALIER 

Sanudo,  whose  unidentified  Cronaca  Antica  we  have 
already  mentioned ;  a  chronicle  attributed  to  Zan- 
carolo l ;  the  chronicle  of  Daniele  Barbaro,  who 
claims  to  base  his  narrative  on  secret  papers,  though 
he  varies  but  slightly  from  the  Sanudo  legend ;  and 
many  others  whose  accounts  of  the  episode  may  be 
broadly  classed  as  adhering  either  to  the  Cronaca 
Trevisan  or  to  Sanudo. 

Following  the  more  truthworthy  of  these  authorities 
— that  is  to  say,  first,  such  few  official  documents 
as  survive,  and  secondly,  the  Chronicle  of  Nicolo 
Trevisan  and  the  Chronicle  of  Lorenzo  de  Monacis — 
we  may  proceed  to  reconstruct  the  story  of  Marino 
Falier  and  his  conspiracy. 

Perhaps  in  no  state  of  importance  equal  to  that  of 
Venice  are  we  left  in  such  obscurity  as  to  personal 
details  regarding  its  great  men ;  material  for  bio- 
graphies of  leading  Venetian  statesmen  and  soldiers 
is  singularly  scanty.  Venice  demanded  and  secured 
the  effacement  of  the  individual,  and  impressed  upon 
its  citizens,  one  and  all,  that  the  state  was  every- 
thing, the  individual  nothing.  The  consequence  is 
that  the  life  of  a  distinguished  Venetian,  in  so 
far  as  we  can  recover  it,  is  little  more  than  a 
bare  record  of  the  offices  he  filled ;  his  policy,  his 
ability,  his  achievements  are  rarely  associated  with 
his  own  name,  and  are  to  be  looked  for  not  in  the 
history  of  the  man  but  in  the  development  of  the  State. 
So  it  is  with  Marino  Falier.  He  belonged  to  that 
branch  of  the  family  which  was  settled  in  the  parish 
of  the  SS.  Apostoli,  and  was  born  between  the  years 
1280  and  1285,  probably  in  the  family  palace  which 
looks  across  the  Rio  dei  SS.  Apostoli  to  the  cupola 
of  the  church,  and  is  carried  on  columns  over  a  sotto- 
portico.  His  father  was  Jacopo  Falier  and  his  mother 
Beriola  Loredan ;  his  blood  therefore  was  the  oldest 
in  Venice,  and  his  connections  of  the  highest.  We 
know  hardly  anything  of  his  youth.  In  all  proba- 
1  Bib.  Marciana,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mcclxxiv. 


EARLY  LIFE  OF  FALIER  85 

bility  he  attended  the  school  of  some  grammarian, 
and  then  passed  into  commercial  life,  frequenting  the 
Rialto  and  making  voyages  in  the  trading  galleys. 
In  due  time  he  would  take  his  seat  in  the  Great 
Council  and  begin  his  political  career.  In  1313, 
when  he  was  about  thirty  years  of  age,  we  find  him 
one  of  the  Chiefs  of  the  Ten,  and  in  1320  he  is 
dealing  with  English  affairs  in  the  Great  Council.1 
In  January  of  1320  he  was  entrusted  with  the  delicate 
and  dangerous  mission  of  hunting  down  (sollicite  et 
attente)  the  conspirators  Bajamonte  Tiepolo  and  Piero 
Quirini.  From  this  time  onwards  Marino  Falier  was 
constantly  employed  either  on  missions  abroad  or  in 
public  offices  at  home.  His  knowledge  of  affairs  was 
enlarged  by  his  service  as  Governor  of  Negropont 
in  1323,  of  Lesina  and  Brazza  in  1334,  of  Chioggia 
in  1337,  1342,  1347,  and  1349.  In  1335  he  married 
Alvica  Gradenigo,  a  niece  of  the  great  Doge  Piero 
Gradenigo  who  carried  the  Serrata  del  Maggior 
Consiglio  and  established  the  aristocratic  caste — a 
marriage  which  doubtless  tended  to  strengthen 
Falier's  social  position  and  political  influence.  He 
was  now  fifty  years  old.  When  Treviso  came  into 
the  hands  of  Venice  in  1339,  Falier  was  appointed  its 
first  Governor,  and  it  was  at  Treviso,  during  the 
period  of  his  second  governorship  in  1346,  that  legend 
relates  how,  on  Corpus  Domini  day,  in  the  cathedral, 
Falier,  in  a  fit  of  blind  fury,  struck  the  bishop  who 
was  bearing  the  Host,  because  he  had  kept  the  pro- 
cession waiting — a  deed  which  is  said  to  have  called 
down  the  wrath  of  heaven,  and  to  have  led  him  to  ruin, 
though  no  chroniclers,  whether  Trevisan  or  Venetian, 
earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  following  century, 
mention  the  episode,  the  strict  veracity  of  which  we 
may  question,  though  it  doubtless  gives  us  some 
indication  of  the  temper  of  the  man.  By  this  time 
Falier's  reputation  had  spread  beyond  the  borders 

1  Archivio  di  Stato,  M.C.  Fronest's,  March  13,  1320,  Jan.  27,  1320-1 
[m.v.],  May  14,  1321. 


86  MARINO  FALIER 

of  Venice,  and  we  find  him  twice  called  to  act  as 
podesta  in  Padua,  where  he  acquired  the  friendship 
of  the  Carraresi,  and  probably  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Petrarch.  In  July,  1349,  with  the  consent  of  the 
Republic,  Falier  received  from  the  Count-Bishop  of 
Ceneda  the  investiture  of  the  fief  of  Val  di  Marena, 
near  Serravalle,  in  the  Marca  Trevigiana,  and 
assumed  the  title  of  Count  of  Val  di  Marena. 

Nor  was  his  reputation  as  a  diplomatist  and  a 
soldier  less  striking.  He  served  on  embassies  to 
Avignon,  to  the  Duke  of  Austria,  to  the  Republic  of 
Genoa  (when  the  friction  between  the  rival  maritime 
states  was  approaching  a  burning  point  over  trade  in 
the  Black  Sea),  to  the  Emperor  Charles  IV.,  1350  (on 
which  occasion  he  was  knighted  and  named  privy 
councillor).  Falier,  moreover,  achieved  distinction 
both  in  the  army  and  in  the  fleet.  He  was  captain 
of  the  galleys  of  Constantinople  and  the  Black  Sea, 
with  commission  to  protect  Venetian  trade;  he  took 
a  brilliant  part  in  the  siege  of  Zara,  which  had 
rebelled  ;  he  was  serving  under  Civran,  and  acquired 
for  himself  the  epithet  "audax,"  when  that  general 
won  the  glorious  victory  of  July,  1346,  over  the  King 
of  Hungary.  In  1348  he  was  elected  to  the  supreme 
command  of  the  forces  sent  to  reduce  Capo  d'Istria, 
but  did  not  arrive  in  time  to  take  an  active  part  in  the 
operations.  Later  on,  in  1352,  he  conducted  a  success- 
ful marauding  campaign  against  the  Genoese,  and  on 
behalf  of  the  Republic  he  was  put  in  possession  of 
the  island  of  Tenedos  by  the  Emperor  John  Paleo- 
logus.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  this  activity  abroad  Falier 
was  no  less  fully  occupied  at  home ;  he  sat  on  com- 
missions for  enlarging  the  Merceria,  and  for  putting 
down  usury ;  he  was  in  trading  partnership  with  his 
brother  Ordelafo  and  his  cousin  Nicolo.  Among  his 
family  and  his  friends  he  was  held  in  the  highest 
esteem ;  his  uncle  Marino  made  him  executor  of  his 
will ;  his  brother  left  him  absolutely  free  to  dispose 
of  his  whole  estate ;  he  was  frequently  called  on  to 


ELECTION  AS  DOGE  87 

arbitrate  between  conflicting  parties.1  In  the  opinion 
of  his  contemporaries  he  stood  very  high.  Petrarch 
bears  witness  to  his  reputation  for  wisdom — a  repu- 
tation which  the  poet  regretfully  admits  was  ill- 
founded  ;  Matteo  Villani  records  his  valour  and  his 
judgment ;  Lorenzo  de  Monicis  declares  him  to  have 
been  reputatus  tantce  gravitatis ;  every  writer  expresses 
surprise  and  regret  at  his  fall.  In  fact,  in  Marino 
Falier  we  have  a  fine  figure  of  a  Venetian  noble  in  the 
Middle  Ages — active,  capable,  respected,  enjoying  a 
great  position  and  displaying  striking  ability ;  and 
yet  this  is  the  man  who,  within  eight  months  of  his 
election  to  the  supreme  dignity  in  the  state,  threw 
all  to  the  winds  and  embarked  on  an  enterprise  as 
rash  as  it  was  criminal.  No  wonder  that  his  conduct 
amazed  and  puzzled  his  contemporaries  and  has  left 
the  explanation  of  his  conspiracy  among  the  obscure 
problems  of  Venetian  history. 

On  September  7,  1354,  the  Doge  Andrea  Dandolo 
died.  The  Great  Council  met  for  the  election  of  the 
five  Correttori  delta  Promissione  ditcale,  or  revisers  of 
the  coronation  oath,  that  powerful  weapon  which  the 
aristocracy  employed  to  restrict  the  authority  of  the 
doge.  On  the  gth  the  Correttori  presented  their  pro- 
posed modifications.  It  is  important  to  bear  these  in 
mind,  for  they  may  possibly  have  contributed  to 
engender  in  Falier  his  hatred  of  the  governing  caste, 
the  new  aristocracy  which  had  consolidated  itself  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Tiepoline  conspiracy.  The  amend- 
ments were  conceived  in  the  usual  spirit ;  their 
intention  was  to  curtail  the  ducal  power  and  prestige. 
Besides  forbidding  the  doge  to  receive  or  to  answer 
any  diplomatic  agent  except  in  the  presence  of  four 
ducal  councillors  and  two  chiefs  of  the  Quarantia, 
the  new  doge  was  bound  to  observe  all  the  regula- 
tions laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  his  Council ;  the 
doge's  intervention  in  matters  financial  and  juridical 

1  For  all  these  details,  see  Sig.  Lazzarini's  exhaustive  study 
"  Marin  Falier  avanti  il  Dogado,"  Nov.  Arch.  Ven.  t.  v.  part  i.  1893. 


88  MARINO   FALIER 

was  further  limited,  and  modifications  and  reductions 
were  made  in  his  salary  and  his  dues.  The  Great 
Council  approved  the  amendments,  and  then,  after  a 
prayer,  pro  bono  duce,  and  after  having  taken  the 
oath  to  abide  by  the  result  of  the  coming  election, 
the  council  proceeded  to  nominate  the  forty-one 
electors.  It  seems  that  Falier's  name  was  already  in 
the  air,  for  a  special  order  was  passed  declaring  that 
if  a  noble  who  was  absent  from  Venice  should  be 
elected  the  regency  should  be  put  in  commission  till 
his  return.  This,  in  all  probability,  referred  to  Falier, 
who  was  then  on  an  embassy  to  the  Pope  at  Avignon. 
The  forty-one  then  proceeded  to  write  the  names  of  the 
proposed  candidates.  Four  names  were  put  forward ; 
on  casting  lots  the  name  of  Falier  came  up  first.  A 
ballot  was  taken  on  his  candidature  and  resulted  in  his 
securing  thirty-five  votes.  Falier  was  accordingly 
elected  Doge  of  Venice  on  September  11,  1354, 
while  absent  from  the  country,  "ducatus  honor  non 
petenti,  imo  quidem  ignaro  sibi  obtigit."1  The  same 
day  he  was  proclaimed  and  confirmed  in  a  general 
assembly  of  the  entire  Venetian  population.  The 
day  following  the  notary  Stefano  Ziera  left  for 
Verona  with  orders  to  procure  from  the  lord  of  Milan 
a  safe-conduct  for  Falier's  journey  through  Lombardy. 
This  done,  Ziera  set  out  for  Avignon  to  inform  Falier 
of  his  election  and  to  present  to  the  Pope  and 
Cardinals  the  Republic's  letters  conveying  the  news. 
But  Falier  had  already  left  Avignon,  and  on  September 
28  it  was  known  in  Venice  that  the  new  doge  was 
at  hand.  Twelve  nobles  were  elected  as  a  solemn 
embassy  to  meet  the  prince ;  each  took  with  him  one 
noble  and  three  pages  as  his  suite.  They  found  the 
doge  at  Verona,  and  brought  him  to  Padua  on  Friday, 
October  3.  At  Padua  they  found  waiting  them 
fifteen  ganzaroli — long,  light  boats  with  a  covered 
cabin  at  the  stern,  rowed  by  thirty  oars — and  they 
started  on  their  way  down  the  Brenta.  On  Sunday 
1  Petrarch,  Epistola>  loc.  tit. 


ENTRY  INTO  VENICE  89 

the  5th  they  reached  the  lagoon  at  Fusina,  where  they 
found  the  Bucintoro  and  a  crowd  of  boats  come  out 
from  Venice.  The  doge  went  on  board  the  great 
barge,  and  the  tale  goes  that  while  crossing  the 
lagoon  a  thick  mist  came  down,  so  that  the  Bucintoro 
ran  into  the  mud  at  S.  Giorgio  in  Alega  and  remained 
there  fast.  The  doge  and  his  company  took  to  the 
lighter  boats  and  were  brought  to  Venice,  where,  by 
an  error  due  to  the  fog,  he  landed  not  at  the  Ponte 
della  Paglia,  but  opposite  the  two  columns  of  the 
Piazzetta — a  place  of  evil  augury  as  the  scene  of 
public  executions.  The  doge  passed  between  the 
columns  on  his  way  to  S.  Marco — an  ominous  fact 
noted  by  Petrarch  immediately  after  the  doge's 
death  ("  sinistro  pede  palatium  ingressus ").  In  the 
church  of  S.  Marco  Falier  was  presented  to  the  people 
and  acclaimed,  and  then,  on  the  upper  landing-place 
of  the  stone  staircase l  leading  from  the  loggia 
down  into  the  courtyard  of  the  ducal  palace,  he 
took  the  coronation  oath  and  received  the  ducal 
bonnet. 

When  Falier  came  to  the  throne  the  condition 
of  Venice  was  far  from  satisfactory,  and  there  was 
general  discontent,  for  various  reasons,  among  all 
classes.  The  Genoese  war  was  still  raging.  Genoa, 
after  the  crushing  defeat  of  Lojera,  had  placed  herself 
under  the  protection  of  Visconti,  thereby  complicating 
the  situation.  Venetian  trade,  especially  in  the  Levant 
and  in  the  Black  Sea,  was  suffering  severely  from  the 
desultory  marauding  campaign  which  was  conducted 
chiefly  by  raids  on  Venetian  shipping.  The  merchant 
class,  therefore,  and  all  who  depended  on  them,  were 
in  a  state  of  irritation  and  anxious  for  peace,  which, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  they  supposed  the  nobles  to  be 
opposing.  Falier  himself  had  failed  in  his  negotiations 

1  This  staircase  stood  at  the  angle  of  the  courtyard  corresponding 
to  the  angle  now  occupied  by  the  Giant  Stairs.  It  was  built  in 
1340,  and  pulled  down  when  the  renaissance  faqade  was  put  up  in 
the  fifteenth  century.  See  Lazzarini,  op.  cit.  p.  37,  note  4. 


90  MARINO   FALIER 

at  Avignon,  which  were  directed  to  that  end.  A  few 
years  earlier,  in  1348,  a  great  earthquake  had  brought 
down  campaniles  and  houses,  and  this  was  followed 
by  a  terrible  plague.  The  lazzar-boats  went  through 
the  canals  of  the  city  to  the  cry  of  "  Corpi  morti ! — 
corpi  morti !  "  and  the  living  flung  the  dead x  from  the 
windows  on  to  the  ghastly  heap.  Falier  had  not  been 
long  on  the  throne  when  the  public  mind  was  still 
further  alarmed  and  exasperated  by  the  serious  defeat 
at  Portolungo  or  Sapienza,  whereby  the  Republic  lost 
the  whole  of  her  fleet,  and  the  Adriatic  and  Venice 
herself  seemed  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  Genoese. 
This  crushing  reverse  was  entirely  due  to  the  negli- 
gence of  some  of  the  nobles  in  command,  and  the  fact 
no  doubt  helped  to  intensify  the  discontent  against 
the  governing  caste.  Furthermore,  the  political  dis- 
franchisement,  brought  about  by  the  closing  of  the 
Great  Council,  was  still  rankling  in  the  minds  of  many 
well-born  and  well-to-do  citizens,  who  found  them- 
selves excluded  from  all  share  in  the  government. 
The  disorder  and  insolence  of  the  young  nobles, 
coupled  with  their  incompetence  at  sea,  justified  the 
growing  hatred.2  The  doge's  action  on  receipt  of 
the  news  from  Sapienza  is  noteworthy  in  view  of  the 
tragedy  so  soon  to  overtake  him.  To  counteract  the 
effects  of  the  defeat,  he  caused  three  experienced 
seamen,  chosen  from  the  people,  not  from  the 
nobles,  to  be  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
flying  squadron  destined  to  harry  the  Genoese,  and 
his  choice  was  fully  justified  by  the  result.  The 
successes  of  Berti  Vido,  Piero  Nani,  Costantino 
Zucuol  stood  out  in  high  relief  against  the  pusillani- 
mity of  the  noble  Nicolo  Quirini,  and  the  people 
began  to  feel  that  in  the  doge  they  had  a  sovereign 
who  was  not  entirely  the  slave  of  the  ruling 
caste. 

1  Romanin,  op.  cit.  iii.  155. 

1  For  the  conduct  of  the  insolent  nobility,  see  Lazzarini,  op.  cit.  56- 
61,  where  various  cases  of  insult  to  the  doge  are  recorded. 


THE  INSULT  91 

While  the  political  atmosphere  of  Venice  was  at 
this  pitch  of  tension,  on  November  10,  1354,  the 
Avvogadori  di  Comun  received  instructions  to  pro- 
ceed against  certain  persons  accused  of  having  written 
insulting  words  and  drawn  offensive  figures  in  the 
"chamber  of  the  chimneys"  in  the  private  apart- 
ments of  the  doge  ("  in  magnum  dedecus  et  vitu- 
perium  totius  terre").  Accordingly  the  following 
young  nobles,  Micheleto  Steno,  Pietro  Bolani,  Rizardo 
Marioni,  Moreto  Zorzi,  Micheleto  de  Molin,  and  Mafeo 
Morosini,  were  arrested  and  tried.  On  November  20 
the  following  sentences  were  passed  :  Michel  Steno  to 
be  imprisoned  for  the  rest  of  the  month — that  is,  for 
ten  days ;  Pietro  Bolani  to  be  imprisoned  till  the 
following  Monday;  Rizardo  Marioni,  who  drew  the 
offensive  figures  as  well  as  wrote  insulting  words,  to 
be  imprisoned  till  the  following  Tuesday ;  while  Zorzi, 
de  Molin  and  Morosini  were  acquitted.1  So  far  the 
official  account ;  there  is  no  mention  of  the  dogaressa, 
but  it  is  explicitly  stated  that  the  insults  were  levelled 
at  the  doge  and  his  nephew  ("  scripsit  multa  enormia 
verba  loquentia  in  vituperium  domini  ducis  et  ejus 
nepotis").  The  account  in  the  official  documents  is 
confirmed  by  Lorenzo  de  Monacis,  but  under  an  on  dit. 
"  Fama  fuit,"  he  writes,  "  quod  se  movit  ad  tantum 
flagitium  [i.e.  the  conspiracy]  quia  aliqui  adoloscentuli 
nobiles  scripserunt  in  augulis  interioris  palatii  aliqua 
verba  ignominiosa,  et  quod  ipse  magis  incanduit 
quoniam  adolescentuli  illi  parva  fuerant  ammadver- 
sione  puniti";  and  Lorenzo  de  Monacis  is  borne  out  by 
the  Chronicle  of  Antonio  Morosini,2  which  reports : 
"  Alguna  inzuria  per  alguny  zovenety  fioli  de  zintilo- 
meni  Veniexia  di  quel  inzustamente  fo  ponidy."  The 
contemporary  authority,  Nicolo  Trevisan,  is  silent 
upon  the  point,  but  we  must  remember  that  this  writer 
begins  his  narrative  only  with  the  conspiracy  itself, 

1  See  Lazzarini,  op.  tit.  p.  202. 

1  Bib.  Marciana,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmxlviii. 


92  MARINO  FALIER 

not  with  the  preceding  insult.1  Lorenzo  de  Monacis 
and  Antonio  Morosini,  then,  confirm  the  fact  of  the 
insult  to  the  doge  as  given  by  the  official  documents, 
and  add  that  he  was  further  incensed  by  the  lightness 
of  the  punishment  inflicted  on  the  culprits,  and  they 
connect  the  doge's  anger  on  this  occasion  with  his 
share  in  the  subsequent  conspiracy ;  but  in  these 
earliest  and  best  authorities  there  is  no  aspersion  on 
the  honour  of  the  dogaressa — a  legend  introduced 
at  a  later  period,  and  traceable  to  Sanudo  and  his 
anonymous  Cronaca  Antica.  Lazzarini  conjectures 
that  there  was  an  ancient  family  feud  between  the 
Falier  and  Steno  families,  basing  his  supposition 
on  the  fact  that  in  August,  1343,  Saray  Falier, 
daughter  of  Ser  Piero  Falier,  of  San  Maurizio,  brought 
an  action  against  Paulo  Steno,  of  San  Geremia,  for 
house-breaking  and  rape  committed  on  her  person 
with  the  connivance  of  two  of  her  servants,  Beta,  a 
German  waiting-woman,  and  Zanino  da  Cremona,  a 
lackey  in  the  Falier  house.2  Steno  was  condemned 
to  a  year's  imprisonment  and  three  hundred  lire 
damages.  Lazzarini's  conjecture  is  ingenious  and 
probable,  and  young  Michel  Steno,  when  insulting 
the  doge  in  his  private  apartments,  may  very  likely 
have  been  expressing  the  feelings  of  his  family,  though 
the  looseness  of  manners  prevailing  in  Venice  made 
such  episodes  common  enough. 

The  insult  took  place  in  November,  and  we  must 
suppose  the  doge  to  have  been  nursing  his  wrath  in 
silence  during  the  next  four  months,  for  there  is  no 
record  of  any  action  on  his  part  which  would  indicate 
that  his  mind  was  set  on  active  revenge.  But  the 
popular  dissatisfaction  with  the  governing  caste 
was  also  smouldering,  and  in  April,  1355,  an  event 
happened  which  brought  the  two  currents  of  feeling 

1  After  the  dedication,  the  Chronicle  begins  :  "  Qui  apresso  se  dira 
1'ordine  e  muodo  fo  prozesso  contra  Messer  Marin  Falier  dosie  de 
Veniexia  per  prodezione." 

3  Lazzarini,  op.  tit.  p.  571. 


BERTUCCIO   IXARELLO  93 

into  contact,  "and  revealed  the  doge's  mind  to  the 
people  and  the  people's  mind  to  the  doge. 

In  the  council  chamber  of  the  Admiralty  a  quarrel 
suddenly  sprang  up  between  Giovanni  Dandolo,  a 
noble,  and  Bertuccio  Ixarello,  a  sea-captain  of  great 
weight  among  the  seafaring  population.1  Dandolo 
struck  Bertuccio,  who  left  the  palace  in  a  fury,  and, 
gathering  his  friends  about  him  in  the  piazzetta,  began 
to  walk  up  and  down  between  the  two  columns  and 
the  Pietra  del  Bando  at  the  Santa  Sofia  angle  of 
S.  Marco,  waiting  till  Dandolo  should  come  out. 
Dandolo  was  aware  of  the  threatening  attitude  of  the 
mob,  and  denounced  the  gathering  to  the  government. 
The  doge  and  his  council  summoned  Bertuccio  to 
their  presence  and  severely  reprimanded  him,  telling 
him  that  if  he  had  a  quarrel  with  Dandolo  he  must 
bring  it  before  the  appointed  Court. 

Sanudo  again  is  responsible  for  a  more  highly 
coloured  version  of  the  case  :  Bertuccio's  face  cut  open 
by  Dandolo's  ring,  Bertuccio's  private  interview  with 
the  doge,  and  Falier's  bitter  complaint  that  as  he 
had  obtained  no  redress  for  Steno's  insult,  he  was 
powerless  to  right  a  mere  master-mariner,  to  which 
Bertuccio  replied,  "  My  Lord  Duke,  if  you  would 
make  yourself  prince  and  cut  all  these  cuckoldy 
gentlemen  to  pieces,  I  have  the  courage  to  make 
you  lord  of  Venice,  if  you  will  but  lend  me 
your  aid." 

But  though  this  conversation  may  be  apocryphal,  our 
trustworthy  Lorenzo  de  Monacis  proceeds  to  say  that, 
on  the  following  night  the  doge  as  a  fact  did  secretly 
send  for  Bertuccio,  and  opened  his  mind  to  him  in 
all  its  bitterness  against  the  nobility.  They  proceeded 
to  lay  out  their  designs.  Bertuccio,  "  auctore  et  pro- 
motore  duce,"  agreed  to  enroll  twenty  leading  citizens, 
recruited  from  the  merchant,  banking,  and  seafaring 

1  Here  we  follow  Lorenzo  de  Monacis.  Trevisan's  account  does 
not  begin  till  April  15,  the  crisis  of  the  plot. 


94  MARINO  FALIER 

classes,1  each  of  whom  would  answer  for  forty  stout 
fellows  who  should  be  ready  to  do  their  bidding — 
that  is  to  say,  the  forces  at  the  disposal  of  the  con- 
spirators would  amount  to  eight  hundred  men.3  The 
plot  matured  rapidly,  but  of  the  twenty  leaders  only 
Bertuccio  Ixarello,  Filippo  Calendario,  Stefanello 
Trevisan,  Antonio  dalle  Binde,  and  Nicoleto  Doro 
were  informed  that  the  doge  himself  was  "  auctorem 
et  conscium  hujus  conjurationis." 

The  plan  of  the  conspirators  was  this :  on  the 
evening  of  April  15  all  the  leaders,  each  with  his 
forty  followers,  were  to  make  for  the  piazza ;  either 
on  the  cry  that  the  Genoese  were  off  the  Lido,  or, 
as  another  account  has  it,  on  the  outbreak  of  a 
fictitious  brawl  among  themselves,  the  doge  was  to 
order  the  bell  of  S.  Marco  to  be  rung ;  this  would 
bring  the  nobles  flocking  to  the  square,  where  they 
were  to  be  cut  to  pieces  as  they  came  up.  In  the 
meantime,  in  order  to  exasperate  the  popular  feeling 
against  the  nobility,  the  conspirators  were  to  divide 
themselves  into  groups  and  scour  the  town  at  night, 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  peaceable  citizens  and  shout- 
ing insults  to  their  wives  and  daughters,  then  whistling 
to  each  other,  and  calling  each  other  by  the  names  of 
noble  families. 

The  secret  was  well  kept ;  the  plot  ripened  ;  April  15 
was  approaching.  But  on  the  very  day  preceding 
the  night  appointed  for  the  rising  the  doge  sent  for 
Nicolo  Zucuol,  son  of  the  Costantino  Zucuol  who, 
by  the  doge's  influence,  had  been  given  the  command 
of  a  flying  squadron.  Nicolo  Zucuol  was  a  man  of 
the  middle  class,  rich,  of  great  weight  with  the  people 

1  An  analysis  of  the  professions  of  the  conspirators  gives  us  the 
following  results  :  one  stonemason,  Calendario  ;  one  money-changer 
and  banker  ;  one  clerk  in  the  customs  ;  one  notary  ;  one  engineer  ; 
one  dyer ;  one  leather  merchant ;  ten  seamen,  or  persons  connected 
with  the  sea  and  shipping. 

*  The  anonymous  chronicler  (Bib.  Mar,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmli.) 
mentions  among  the  conspirators  "  Ser  Marco  Mudazo  de  Chastello 
patron  de  nave  con  molti  suoi  marinari  valentissimi  homeni." 


THE  PLOT  95 

of  his  own  rank,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  the  doge. 
Unfortunately,  Lorenzo  de  Monacis,  who  furnishes 
this  information,  breaks  off  his  narrative  just  at  this 
point,  but  Matteo  Villani  comes  to  our  help.  He  tells 
us  that  the  doge,  whose  object  evidently  was  to  secure 
the  support  of  the  class  represented  by  Zucuol,  laid 
before  his  friend  the  whole  plot,  which  was  on  the 
very  point  of  being  carried  into  execution  ;  but  instead 
of  support  he  met  with  opposition  from  Zucuol,  and 
entreaties  to  abandon  the  scheme  before  it  was  too 
late.  Villani  goes  on  to  say  that  the  doge,  in  alarm, 
accepted  his  friend's  advice,  and  empowered  him  to 
seek  out  the  leading  conspirators  and  to  order  them,  in 
his  name,  to  proceed  no  further  with  the  design ;  as 
warrant  for  this  order  the  doge  gave  Zucuol  his 
signet  ring.  When  the  populace  learned  this  change 
of  plan,  they  considered  themselves  betrayed  by  the 
doge.  If  Villani's  story  be  correct,  this  would  account 
for  the  attitude  of  the  people.  But  it  differs  from  the 
story  as  told  by  Trevisan,  to  whom  we  now  return. 
At  the  hour  of  supper  on  April  15 — that  is,  shortly 
after  Zucuol  had  seen  the  doge — Vendrame,  a  leather 
merchant,  one  of  the  conspirators  who  was  not  aware 
that  the  doge  was  in  the  plot,  being  a  particular  friend 
of  Messer  Nicolo  Lion,  a  patrician,  went  to  Lion's 
house  and  told  him  that  there  was  to  be  a  rising  in 
Venice  headed  by  Bertuccio  Ixarello,  Stefano  Trevisan, 
and  many  others,  whose  object  was  to  upset  the  state 
of  Venice  ("  chon  intenzion  de  rovezar  el  stato  de 
Veniexia").  Vendrame  declared  that  he  revealed  the 
plot  to  Lion  in  order  that  he  might  take  steps  to 
frustrate  so  great  an  evil.  Lion,  on  hearing  this,  was 
struck  dumb  with  terror,  but  presently  both  set  out 
for  the  palace  and  laid  the  whole  story  before  the 
doge,  who,  however,  appeared  to  make  light  of  the 
affair.  Lion  was  not  satisfied,  and  urged  the  summon- 
ing of  the  Council,  to  which  the  doge  reluctantly 
agreed.  The  Council,  it  seems,  were  aware  of  a 
certain  unquiet  in  the  city,  and  had  ordered  pre- 


96  MARINO   FALIER 

cautions  to  be  taken  ;  but  nothing  positive  was  known 
as  yet.  While  they  were  still  sitting,  two  members  of 
the  Contarini  family,  Giacomo  and  his  nephew  Zuan, 
arrived  at  the  palace  with  news  that  they  had  dis- 
covered a  plot  among  the  population  of  Castello, 
headed  by  Filippo  Calendario ;  this  information  they 
had  from  a  friend  who  had  been  invited  to  join  the 
rising,  but  had  declined,  and  had  denounced  the  con- 
spiracy to  the  Contarini.  The  name  of  this  friend  the 
Contarini  refused  to  give,  but  under  pressure  from 
the  Council  they  went  back  to  their  house,  and 
presently  returned  with  Marco  Negro,  a  seaman  of 
Castello.  Marco,  closely  examined,  deposed  that 
Nicolo  Brazzaduro  and  Marco  Muda  had  invited  him 
to  join  them  in  the  plot  of  which  Marino  Falier,  Doge 
of  Venice,  was  the  head  ("  choncludendo  che  Miser 
Marin  Falier,  doxie  de  Venexia,  era  chapo  e  guida  del 
dito  tratato ").  We  must  conclude  that  the  Council 
already  had  some  suspicion  of  the  fact,  for  apparently 
they  were,  contrary  to  practice,  sitting  without  the 
doge,  who  was  moving  about  the  palace  with  a  large 
train  of  people  and  nobles  and  other  persons  of  weight, 
who  did  not  know  how  the  matter  stood  ("  chandava 
per  pallazo  con  gram  zente  e  zentillomeni  e  altra 
bona  zente  che  non  sapeva  el  fato  chomo  stava"). 
Night  was  now  closing  in  rapidly ;  the  conspirators 
were  waiting  for  the  sound  of  the  bell,  but  the  doge, 
in  the  uncertainty  of  the  situation  at  the  palace,  gave 
no  order.  The  Council,  however,  acted  promptly. 
Calendario  and  Zuan  da  Corso  were  arrested,  brought 
to  the  palace,  and  immediately  tortured.  Corso  con- 
fessed that  Marino  Falier  was  in  the  plot  ("  era  in  lo 
tratato ") ;  he  also  denounced  Calendario,  who  there- 
upon made  a  full  confession  with  names.  Orders 
were  given  to  occupy  the  piazza  with  armed  men. 

So  rapid  had  been  the  action  of  the  Council  that, 
even  if  the  people  had  intended  to  rise,  which  is  doubt- 
ful, they  were  forestalled.  The  tocsin  was  not  rung, 
and  the  city  remained  absolutely  quiet  through  the 


THE  TRIAL  97 

night.  On  becoming  convinced  of  the  doge's  guilt, 
the  Ducal  Council  convened  the  Council  of  Ten  ("  a 
qual  conseglio  aspetta  simille  chose  ").  The  Ten  at 
once  appointed  a  Zonta  (Giunta)  of  twenty  assessors, 
chosen  from  among  the  more  distinguished  nobles, 
and  summoned  the  doge  to  appear  before  them.  By 
this  time  it  was  early  morning,  and  the  dawn  of 
Tuesday,  April  16,  was  just  coming  in. 

Meantime  Bertuccio  Ixarello  had  been  arrested  and 
brought  to  the  palace  by  the  people  of  Santa  Croce — 
a  significant  fact,  enabling  us  to  estimate  the  slight 
extent  to  which  the  populace  of  Venice  was  in  favour 
of  the  plot.  Calendario  and  Ixarello  were  at  once 
condemned,  and  hung  with  gags  in  their  mouths  from 
the  red  columns  on  the  upper  loggia  of  the  old  palace 
looking  on  to  the  piazzetta.1  The  other  arcades  pro- 
ceeding from  the  red  columns  towards  the  molo  were 
soon  filled  with  other  corpses  as  execution  succeeded 
execution — eleven  in  all. 

On  Friday,  April  17,  five  of  the  ducal  councillors 
(Giovanni  Sanudo  being  ill),  nine  of  the  Council  of 
Ten  (Ser  Nicolo  Falier  withdrawing  as  a  relation  of 
the  doge),  twenty  of  the  Zonta,  and  two  Avvogadori 
di  Comun  (another  Ser  Nicolo  Falier  withdrawing  as 
related  to  the  prisoner),  met  to  sentence  the  doge.  The 
court  was  therefore  composed  of  thirty-six  persons.  A 
commission  of  four — Giovanni  Mocenigo  (ducal  coun- 
cillor), Giovanni  Marcello  (chief  of  the  Ten),  Luca  da 
Lezze  (inquisitor  of  the  Ten),  and  Orio  Pasqualigo, 
(Avvo^ador) — had  already  examined  the  doge,  whether 
with  torture  or  not  is  uncertain,  though  a  chronicle 
of  the  fifteenth  century  relates  that  when  Falier  was 
conducted  to  "  the  place  of  torture  "  a  paper  fell  from 
his  person  which  revealed  the  whole  plot  ("  li  cazete 
zerta  scrittura  per  la  qual  lettera  intexe  tutto  ").2  Tre- 
visan,  however,  who  was  one  of  the  Ten,  but  not  of 

1  This  loggia  disappeared  when  the  old  palace  was  pulled  down  in 
1424.     See  Lazzarini,  op,  cit.  p.  102,  note  2. 
*  Museo  Civico^  cod.  443. 
VOL.  I.  7 


98  MARINO   FALIER 

the  examining  commission,  is  silent  on  this  point. 
We  have  no  first-hand  account  of  what  took  place  at 
the  examination  ;  but  Matteo  Villani,  who  seems  to 
have  been  in  possession  of  trustworthy  information — 
though  his  account  varies  from  that  of  Trevisan — 
makes  use  of  the  significant  phrase,  "  The  doge  could 
not  deny  the  charge  "("II  doge  nol  seppe  negare  "). 
In  any  case,  the  examining  judges  brought  up  their 
report,  which  was  discussed  by  the  full  court  of 
thirty-six.  The  formal  question  was  then  put :  "  After 
what  has  been  said  and  read,-  shall  we  proceed 
against  Marino  Falier,  doge,  for  treason  to  the  State 
and  Commune  of  Venice?"  The  answer  was  in  the 
affirmative.  Then  about  the  hour  of  Vespers  sentence 
was  moved  in  the  following  terms — that  Marino  Falier 
should  be  beheaded  on  the  landing-place  of  the  stone 
staircase,  where  he  had  taken  his  coronation  oath  and 
received  the  ducal  bonnet.  Confiscation  of  the  doge's 
property  was  implied  in  this  sentence ;  but  ob  ducatus 
reverentiam  he  was  permitted  to  devise  the  large  sum 
of  two  thousand  lire  de1 grossi,  equivalent  to  twenty 
thousand  ducats,  and  by  his  will,  drawn  up  for  him 
by  the  notary  Piero  de  Compostelli l  in  the  afternoon 
of  April  17,  Falier  bequeathed  the  whole  of  that 
sum  to  his  wife  and  named  her  sole  executrix — a  fact 
in  itself  sufficient  to  dissipate  the  legend  of  the 
dogaressa's  light  living.  The  sentence  was  com- 
municated to  the  doge  in  the  Sala  del  Maggior 
Consiglio,  and  the  ducal  bonnet  was  removed  from 
his  head  ;  he  was  led  down  the  stairs  amidst  a  hostile 
throng,  and,  as  the  sun  was  setting,  at  the  top  of  the 
marble  stairs  which  descended  into  the  courtyard,  his 
head  fell  to  the  executioner's  sword.  Sanudo 2  tells  us 
that  he  remembers  to  have  seen  a  white  damask  altar- 
cloth,  used  on  Good  Fridays,  all  stained  with  blood, 
said  to  have  been  placed  under  the  doge  when  his  head 
was  cut  off  ("  cussi  ozi  intessi ").  The  doors  of  the 
palace  had  been  closed,  and  when  the  execution  was 

1  Bollettino  araldico,  No.  12.  *  See  Diarii,  xxviii.  246. 


MARINO'S  TOMB  99 

over  either  the  executioner,  or,  according  to  another 
version,  a  chief  of  the  Ten,  went  to  the  loggia  over- 
looking the  piazza,  and,  showing  the  bloody  sword  to 
the  crowd,  cried,  "  Look,  all  of  you ;  supreme  justice 
has  been  done  on  the  traitor."  The  doge's  body,  with 
his  head  at  his  feet,  was  wrapped  in  a  matting,  and  lay 
for  some  time  in  the  chamber  of  the  Piovego  for  all  to 
see.  Then  the  corpse  was  placed  in  a  common  bar- 
chetta  from  the  traghetto,  with  four  torches,  one  priest 
and  an  acolyte,  and  conveyed  to  the  family  vault  at 
San  Giovanni  e  Paolo.1 

The  Falier  tomb  was  a  large  oblong  sarcophagus 
of  Istrian  stone ;  it  had  an  inscription  and  the 
Falier  coat-of-arms  on  it,  and  stood  in  an  angle  of 
the  vestibule  of  the  chapel  dedicated  to  the  Madonna 
della  Pace.  It  was  opened  in  1812,  and  was  found 
to  be  full  of  skeletons.  These  were  removed  one 
by  one,  and  when  nearly  all  had  been  taken  out, 
the  searchers  came  on  one  which  had  its  skull  between 
its  feet ;  it  was  instantly  recognised  as  the  skeleton 
of  the  luckless  doge.2  What  became  of  these  inte- 
resting remains  we  do  not  know.  The  great  sarco- 
phagus was,  for  a  long  time,  used  as  a  cistern  in  the 
dispensary  of  the  Town  Hospital ;  it  is  now  the  outer 
loggia  of  the  Museo  Civico,  though  both  inscription 
and  arms  have  been  obliterated. 

It  was  only  after  eleven  years  had  elapsed  from  the 
date  of  the  conspiracy  and  execution  of  the  doge  that 
the  Council  of  Ten,  on  December  10,  1366,  decreed3 

1  Bib.  Martiana,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmli.  fol.  50  v°. :  "  E  fu  messo  el 
suo  corpo  in  una  barchetta  da  trageto  con  iiii.  dopieri  e  uno  prete  e 
uno  zago  e  fo  portato  a  sepelir  a  San  Zuane  polio." 

8  Lazzarini,  op.  cit.  pp.  191,  192. 

s  Arch,  di  Siato,  Cons.  x.  Misti,  reg.  6,  fol.  47.  The  decree  runs 
thus:  "1366  die  xvi.  mensis  decembris.  Capta.  Quod  figura  Ser 
Marini  Faletro  posita  in  Sala  nova  Majoris  Consilij  amoveatur  in 
totum  et  remaneat  locus  vacuus  in  colore  azuro  et  in  campo  scrib- 
antur  litere  albe,  Hie  fuit  locus  Ser  Marini  Faletro  decapitati  pro 
crimine  proditionis^  dimitendo  armam  suam  .  .  .9."  An  amend- 
ment was  moved  by  Pietro  Zane  and  Andrea  in  these  terms  :  "  Quod 


ioo  MARINO  FALIER 

the  removal  of  Falier's  portrait  from  the  series  which 
formed  the  frieze  to  the  Sala  del  Maggior  Consiglio, 
and  that  the  vacant  space  should  be  painted  blue,  with 
the  following  inscription  in  white :  "  Hie  fuit  locus 
Ser  Marini  Faletro  decapitati  pro  crimine  proditionis." 
This  first  inscription  gives  a  definition  of  the  doge's 
crime — namely,  treason.  When  after  the  fire  of  1577 
the  portraits  of  the  doges  were  renewed,  in  Falier's 
space  a  black  curtain  was  painted  bearing  these  words 
in  white,  as  we  now  see  it :  "  Hie  est  locus  Marini 
Faletro  decapitati  pro  criminibus."  This  second  in- 
scription leaves  the  crimes  undefined. 

After  the  decapitation  of  the  doge,  other  trials, 
executions,  confiscations,  and  sentences  of  banishment 
followed  in  rapid  succession,  though  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  Ten  were  excessively  harsh,  for  a  large 
number  of  minor  accomplices  were  pardoned.1  Vigor- 
ous measures  secured  the  peace  of  the  city,  which 
does  not  seem  at  any  moment  to  have  been  seriously 
menaced.  Trustworthy  men  were  brought  up  from 
Chioggia,  and  the  nobles  were  required  to  attend 
armed  day  and  night  for  the  protection  of  the  piazza 
and  the  palace.  But  these  precautions  lasted  barely 
two  months,  and  all  extraordinary  measures  were 
revoked  by  an  order  of  the  Ten  on  June  10 2 :  "  Cum 
per  gratiam  Dei  terra  nostra  reducta  sit  in  statu  quietis 
et  pacis,  vadit  pars  quod  custodie  ordinate  de  novo 
cessent,  nee  amplius  fiant."  April  10,  the  feast  of 
Sant'  Isidore,  was  appointed  as  a  day  of  solemn 
thanksgiving  and  procession  round  the  Piazza  di 
San  Marco,  attended  with  the  same  ceremony  as 
was  observed  on  the  feast  of  St.  Vitus  which 

figura  Ser  Marini  Faletro  picta  in  Sala  nova  Majoris  Consilij  reducatur 
in  hunc  modum :  videlicit  quod  caput  pendeat  recisum  ad  colum, 
et  scribatur  quod  fuit  decapitatus  ob  crimine  prodictionis  .  •  .  7 ; 
neutral,  o ;  noes,  o."  The  original  motion  was  carried.  See  Lorenzi, 
Monumenti  per  servire  alia  Storia  del  Palazzo  Ducale  (Venezia, 
Visentini :  1868),  p.  38. 

1  Lazzarini,  op.  cit.  p.  117. 

'  Arch,  di  Stato,  Cons.  x.  Misti,  reg.  5,  fol.  34  V. 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  THE  TREASON 

commemorated  the  failure  of  the  Tiepoline  conspiracy 
in  1310. 

Such  were  the  facts  of  the  conspiracy  of  Marino 
Falier,  according  to  the  earliest  and  most  trustworthy 
authorities ;  but  the  causes  of  the  conspiracy  and  the 
real  intention  of  the  doge  have  always  been,  and  still 
remain,  a  matter  of  conjecture.  It  is  certain  that 
Falier's  action  was  a  surprise  and  a  puzzle  to  his 
friends,  his  contemporaries,  and  those  nearest  to  his 
time.  Petrarch,  writing  from  Milan  only  seven  days 
after  Falier's  execution,  admits  that  the  doge's  conduct 
convinced  him  that  he  had  been  mistaken  as  to  Falier's 
character,  that  the  doge  proved  to  have  possessed 
more  courage  than  prudence,  and  had  enjoyed  for 
many  years  an  unmerited  reputation  for  sound  sense. 
Lorenzo  de  Monacis  is  even  more  outspoken  in  his 
amazement.  "  Stupor  est,"  he  says,  "  quod  vir  plenus 
dierum  reputatus  tantae  gravitatis  ita  crudelis  fuerit 
quod  excogitaverit  tantum  scelus."  It  is  clear  that 
both  Petrarch  and  de  Monacis — acute  intelligences, 
trained  politicians — felt  a  difficulty  in  explaining  the 
event  and  in  defining  the  motive  and  aims  of  the 
doge. 

The  official  statements  which  immediately  followed 
the  execution  positively  assert  the  doge's  "  treason," 
but  do  not  state  the  nature  of  that  treason.  On 
April  17 — that  is,  the  day  of  the  doge's  death — 
the  government  wrote  to  Lorenzo  Celsi,  Podesta  of 
Treviso,  that  certain  persons,  "  diabolico  spiritu  insti- 
gates," had  planned  the  "  subvertionem  status  civitatis 
nostre,"  but  add  that  "  it  has  pleased  God  to  give 
into  our  hands  '  omnes  principales  et  auctores  pro- 
ditionis  predicte,'  and  we  have  already  beheaded 
Marino  Faletro,  lately  Doge  of  Venice,  'qui  fuit 
auctor  et  caput  proditionis  predicte.'"1  On  April  19, 
two  days  after  the  doge's  execution,  the  Great  Council, 
when  deliberating  on  the  election  of  a  new  doge, 
declare  that  "  vacante  ducatu  per  obitum  domini 
1  Verci,  Storia  della  Marco.  Trevigianat  vol.  xiii.  Documents,  p.  31. 


102  MARINO  FALIER 

Marini    Faledro    olim    ducis    Venetiarum    decapitati 
propter  proditionem  per  eum  ordinatam  in  consump- 
tionem     et    destructionem     civitatis    Venetiarum     et 
populi   ejusdem."     Here    the    doge    is   accused   of   a 
treason   not   only  against  the  state    of   Venice,   but 
against  the  people  of  Venice,  though  the  nature  of 
the   plot    is    not    revealed.     Again,    on    January    13, 
I355~^>  the   Council  of  Ten   speak  of   the  "proditio 
attentata  per  Ser  Marinum   Faledro."    The  contem- 
porary Chronicle  of  Trevisan  is  not  more  explicit  as 
to   the    doge's    aims.      "  Voiando,"   he    says,   "  tuti  i 
prediti  redur  Veniexia  aruina  e  pessimo  stato."    The 
anonymous  chronicler  of  I3961  is  the  first  to  define 
the  doge's  object :  "  Questo  doxe  insperado  da  spiriti 
diabolici  con  alcuni    homeni   suo    seguaci   provolari 
volse    tradir    Veniexia   e  farse    signor   dessa " ;    and 
farther  on :  "  E  poi  dovea  levar  el  dito  doxe  signor 
a   bacheta  e  mantegnir  el  rizimento   de  Veniexia  a 
puovollo  e   robar  tute  le  chaxe    dei   zentilomeni  et 
alzider  tuti  quelli  li  fosse  contrarii  e  vergognare  tute 
le  sue  done."     Here  we  get  the  statement  that  the 
doge,  with  the  help  of  some  of  the  populace,  intended 
to  make  himself  lord  of  Venice,  the  bribe  held  out  to 
his  followers  being  the  sacking  of  the  nobles'  houses, 
the  ravishing    of   their    women-folk,  and    the  usual 
promise,  put   forward   by  all   Italians  aspiring  to  a 
despotism,  that  the  government  should  be  carried  on 
on  lines  favourable  to  the  people  ("  mantegnir  el  rizi- 
mento de  Veniexia  a  puovollo*').     Lorenzo  de  Monacis 
supports  this  view,  though  in  more  measured  terms : 
"  Dux   immemor   ingentium    patriae   beneficiorum,   et 
magnitudine    honorum    elatus  .   .   .  truci    ambitione 
vexatus,  excogitavit  auxilio  aliquorum   civium  popu- 
larium  subvertere  statum  civitatis  et  extincta  nobili- 
tate  dignitatem  antiqui  et   perpetui  ducatus  nova  et 
violenta    permutare    tyrannide."      Here    the    doge's 
personal  ambition  is  adduced  as  the  main  factor  in 
the  plot ;  and  later  on,  when  relating  the  insult  to  the 
1  Bib.  Marciana^  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  mmli. 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  THE  TREASON  103 

doge,  Lorenzo  declares  that  "  satis  patet  quod  dux 
non  habuit  causam  sed  quaesivit  occasionem  male 
agendi" — that  Steno's  insult,  in  fact,  was  not  the  cause 
but  the  pretext  for  the  plot  which  was  already  ripen- 
ing in  the  doge's  ambitious  mind.  Finally,  Antonio 
Morosini  says  that  the  doge  "  manda  per  alguny 
povolany  homeny  de  mar  e  de  altra  chativa  chondicion 
persone,  atratando  voler  la  citade  de  Veniexia  in  so 
dominio  per  muodo  de  tirania."  That  is  a  distinct 
statement  that  Falier  was  aiming  at  a  tyranny.  The 
official  statements  and  the  opinion  of  the  nearest 
authorities,  therefore,  all  agree  in  explaining  the  plot 
as  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  Falier  to  make  himself 
sovereign  in  Venice  by  the  help  of  the  people  and  the 
seafaring  and  merchant  classes.  We  must,  however, 
bear  in  mind  that,  in  spite  of  this  consensus  of  opinion, 
we  are  listening  to  one  party  only — the  aristocratic 
and  official  side  of  the  case — the  statement  of  those 
who  condemned  the  doge  or  were  in  the  service  of 
the  government  that  executed  him ;  we  have  never 
heard  the  doge's  side  of  the  case,  the  minutes  of  his 
examination  before  the  Commission  of  the  Ten  being 
unfortunately  lost.  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  his 
friend  Petrarch  has  nothing  to  urge  in  Falier's  defence. 
"  Nemo  ilium  excusat ;  ita  populum  absolve " ;  but 
then,  failure  is  seldom  excused. 

Various  conjectural  explanations  of  the  exact  aim 
of  the  plot  have  been  advanced ;  each  of  them,  how- 
ever, presents  some  difficulties.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  key  to  the  conspiracy  was  a  coalition  between 
the  doge,  smarting  under  Steno's  insult,  and  the 
people,  exasperated  by  the  insolence  of  the  governing 
caste ;  and  that  the  object  of  the  plot  was  to  crush  the 
nobility  and  to  return  to  the  earlier  constitution  of 
Venice,  in  which  the  doge  and  people  were  in  imme- 
diate contact.  But  the  action  of  the  populace  during 
the  crisis  of  the  plot  seems  to  negative  such  a  conclu- 
sion. The  people  did  not  rise,  the  city  remained 
remarkably  quiet,  the  movement  was  confined  to  the 


io4  MARINO  FALIER 

quarter  of  Castello  and  to  the  arsenal  hands,1  on 
whom  the  doge  chiefly  relied ;  some  of  the  con- 
spirators were  even  arrested  and  brought  to  the 
palace  by  the  people  of  Santa  Croce. 

Again,  the  conspiracy  has  been  represented  as 
following  the  lines  of  the  Tiepolo  rising,  as  a  revolt 
against  the  operation  of  the  Serrata  del  Maggior 
Consiglio,  which  disfranchised  so  many  families.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  in  the  documents  to  support  this 
view,  and  we  find  no  noble  names  among  those  of  the 
conspirators. 

There  remains  the  third  and  most  plausible  explana- 
tion— that  the  doge  intended,  with  the  help  of  the  lower 
populace,  to  make  himself  despot  or  lord  of  Venice. 
This  view  has  the  nearly  unanimous  support  of  all 
who  lived  about  the  time  of  the  conspiracy.  The  idea 
was  in  the  air  of  Italy.  The  doge  had  seen  the 
Visconti,  the  Scalas,  the  Carraresi,  raising  themselves 
to  absolute  power  in  their  native  cities.  The  idea  was 
also  in  the  air  of  Venice.  A  proposal  had  been  made 
to  other  nobles,  Piero  Badoer  and  Piero  Guistinian, 
for  example,  that  they  should  follow  the  spirit  of  the 
times  and  by  a  bold  stroke  create  a  dynasty  in  place 
of  the  oligarchy.  The  danger  from  the  dynastic  idea 

1  The  arsenal  hands  were  especially  entrusted  with  service  at  the 
palace.  They  formed,  indeed,  a  sort  of  bodyguard  to  the  doge,  and 
down  to  the  close  of  the  Republic  it  was  they  who  cleared  the  piazza 
when  the  newly  elected  doge  made  his  procession  in  the  pozzetto  (see 
Canal  and  Brustolon's  engravings).  By  the  early  constitution  of  the 
Republic  the  crafts  were  bound  to  render  certain  services  of  their 
trade  to  the  doge  and  to  work  in  the  courtyard  of  the  palace.  But 
not  all  the  members  of  a  trade  were  required  for  palace  service ; 
hence  arose  the  distinction  between  the  artigiano  curtense  and  the 
artigiano  libero.  The  artigiani  curtensi  became  a  kind  of  train- 
band at  the  disposal  of  the  doge,  and  Falier  may  have  been  relying 
in  part  at  least  on  their  support.  This  was  a  power  which  the  aristo- 
cracy, in  its  determination  to  prevent  a  doge  from  ever  becoming  lord 
of  Venice,  was  resolved  to  curtail ;  and  we  find  the  rights  of  the  doge 
over  the  artigiani  curtensi  being  gradually  restricted  in  successive 
flromissioni  (see  Monticolo,  /  capitolari  delle  arti  Veneziane,  vol.  ii. 
Preface  [Roma,  Istit.  Storico  :  1905]). 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  THE  TREASON  105 

was  ever  present  to  the  minds  of  the  governing  caste, 
and  led  them  to  curtail  the  ducal  power  with  each 
successive  coronation  oath.  But  even  this  explana- 
tion is  not  free  of  objections.  There  is  the  difficulty 
of  accounting  for  the  attitude  and  action  of  the  doge 
himself.  In  the  whole  course  of  Falier's  career  there 
is  not  the  smallest  indication  of  such  an  idea  having 
entered  his  head  up  to  the  date  of  his  election  as  doge. 
He  did  not  seek  election ;  he  did  not  even  know  that 
the  ducal  throne  was;  vacant;  "  ducatus  honor  non 
petenti ;  imo  quidem  ignaro  sibi  obtigit,"  says  Petrarch 
truly.  And  yet  election  to  the  dogeship  must  have 
been  essential  to  the  success  of  such  a  scheme,  had  he 
ever  entertained  the  idea.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
governing  caste  can  have  had  no  suspicion  of  Falier 
when  they  elected  him  doge ;  they  would  never  have 
filled  the  chief  place  in  the  state  by  a  man  suspected 
of  intending  to  overthrow  their  own  domination. 
Furthermore,  Falier  was  childless  and  with  few  rela- 
tions— a  fact  which  militates  against  the  supposition 
that  he  contemplated  founding  a  dynasty,  though  it  is 
true  he  was  deeply  attached  to  his  nephew  Fantino, 
and  may  have  dreamt  of  him  as  a  successor  on  the 
throne.  In  any  case,  we  may  feel  pretty  sure  that 
Falier,  when  he  came  to  the  throne,  had  no  intention 
of  upsetting  the  Venetian  constitution.  How  are  we 
to  explain  the  rapid  growth  of  so  rash  a  design  in  the 
brain  of  an  old  man,  famed  for  prudence,  with  a  past 
illustrious  for  brilliant  and  faithful  service  to  the 
state?  Steno's  insult  is  altogether  too  trivial  an 
episode  to  account  satisfactorily  for  so  violent  a 
change  of  attitude.  At  the  end  of  the  matter  we  are 
forced  to  Petrarch's  conclusion.  "  I  pity,"  he  says, 
"and  at  the  same  time  I  am  wrath  with  that  unhappy 
man,  who,  raised  to  the  highest  honour,  sought 
heaven  knows  what  at  the  very  close  of  his  days. 
His  misfortune  is  all  the  greater  in  that  the  judgment 
passed  upon  him  would  show  him  to  have  been  not 
merely  luckless,  but  demented  and  insane." 


ic6  MARINO  FALIER 

"  Causas  vero  ...  si  comperte  loqui  velim,  nequeo, 
tarn  ambiguae  et  variae  referentur." 

Whatever  the  causes  may  have  been,  the  result  of 
Falier's  conspiracy  is  clear.  As  the  rising  of  Tiepolo 
created  the  Council  of  Ten,  that  powerful  weapon  of 
the  governing  caste,  so  the  execution  of  the  doge 
demonstrated  and  confirmed  the  supremacy  of  the 
Ten.  The  rapidity  and  efficiency  of  its  action1  in 
the  face  of  a  grave  menace  to  the  new  aristocracy, 
the  party  whose  creature  it  was,  justified  its  existence. 
If  there  had  ever  been  any  doubt  in  men's  minds  as  to 
whether  this  potent  engine  were  to  remain  a  permanent 
part  of  the  Constitution,  the  conspiracy  of  Marino 
Falier  dissipated  such  doubts  for  ever,  and  finally 
established  the  Council  of  Ten  as  the  very  core  of 
the  Venetian  oligarchy. 

1  The  government  acknowledged  that  the  Ten  had  acted  "  absque 
aliquo  strepitu  vel  turbatione  civium." 


The  Carraresi 

Si  trova  sulla  terra  delle  catastrofi. — FERRARI. 

ITALY,  it  has  often  been  said,  is  not  the  country  of 
chivalrous  romance.  In  nothing  is  the  truth  of  the 
observation  more  clearly  shown  than  in  the  history 
of  her  great  families.  There  is  no  lack  of  adventure, 
and  often  an  excess  of  strange,  bizarre,  startling 
incidents  calling  forth  shrewdness,  resource,  courage  ; 
but  the  aroma  of  romance  is  not  there,  the  peculiar 
charm  of  chivalry  is  wanting;  there  is  no  mystery. 
Italian  character  is  true  to  Italian  landscape,  "  the 
little  blue-hilled,  pastoral,  sceptical  landscape,"  perfect 
in  form,  delicious  and  delicate  in  colour,  but  grand  or 
mysterious  seldom.  Italy  never  felt  the  full  force  of 
the  feudal  system ;  and  people  of  northern  tempera- 
ment miss  that  sympathetic  thrill  that  even  now  runs 
through  us  as  we  read  of  actions  gentle,  loyal,  knightly, 
or  true.  No  doubt  much  of  the  charm  of  our  family 
history  is  due  to  its  vague  outline.  We  look  at  the 
deeds  of  our  forefathers  through  the  obscurity  of 
barbarous  ages.  The  lines  grow  mellowed  and  softened, 
toned  to  fit  subjects  for  a  ballad ;  the  traditions  of 
family  history  live  as  sacred  legends,  of  deep  interest 
to  the  family,  but  still  legends,  myths  robbed  of  the 
cold  clearness  of  an  historical  outline.  In  Italy  family 
story  emerges  only  to  become  at  once  an  integral  por- 
tion of  the  country's  history,  to  pass  directly  into  the 
cold  light,  to  be  immediately  tested  by  the  critical 
standards  of  historical  accuracy ;  it  has  from  the 
moment  of  its  birth  that  clearness  and  crudeness 
which  belong  to  fact.  The  early  deeds  of  the 
Visconti,  the  Scala  family,  or  the  Carraresi  live  not 

107 


io8  THE  CARRARESI 

in  ballads  but  in  chronicles,  our  main  fountain-heads 
for  picturesque  Italian  history  generally.  Yet  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  these  chronicles  are  devoid 
of  interest  or  of  fascination.  They  have,  after  all,  many 
of  the  qualities  of  the  ballad;  they  make  their  pictures, 
they  touch  the  human  passion  with  that  simplicity 
which  is  consummate  art,  and,  almost  in  spite  of  the 
deeds  they  relate,  there  is  a  tenderness  about  them. 
No  one  can  read  the  Perugian  chronicle  of  Matarazzo,1 
or  the  Paduan  history  of  the  Gattari,  without  feeling 
that  they  have  a  charm  and  romance  of  their  own — 
not  the  clannish  romance  of  feudalism,  steeped  in 
mystery  and  weirdness,  but  the  charm  of  highly 
developed  individualities  in  play  with  other  characters 
their  like.  The  men  of  these  chronicles  are  beautiful 
as  finished  products  of  civilization ;  but  we  can  never 
think  of  them  as 

Beauty  making  beautiful  old  rhyme. 

The  family  of  Carrara,  with  whose  intricate  growth 
and  tragical  end  we  have  now  to  deal,  lived  in  the 
very  heart  of  that  curious  period  of  Italian  history 
when  the  Signori  rose  to  the  height  of  their  illegal 
power.  The  Carraresi  grew  up  side  by  side  with  the 
Visconti,  the  Gonzaghi,  the  Estensi,  the  Polentani,  the 
Rossi,  the  Scaligeri,  and  with  the  last  of  these  they  fell. 
Venice  alone  among  all  these  princelings  pursued  a 
steady  policy.  In  common  with  her  neighbours  she 
had  passed  through  the  crisis  of  the  Signori,  those 
pangs  which  issued  in  the  birth  of  a  despot  for  nearly 
every  Italian  town.  But  with  her  the  revolution  took 
a  complexion  peculiar  to  herself.  When  the  ferment 
of  the  Tiepoline  conspiracy  subsided,  Venice  found 
herself  not  under  the  rule  of  a  single  tyrant,  an  in- 
dividual who  might  be  assassinated  and  who  was 
doomed,  sooner  or  later,  to  extinction  with  his  whole 
race,  but  with  the  permanent,  unassailable  Ten  as  her 
lord.  She  was  a  republic  only  in  name  ;  the  Ten  was 

1  See  the  essay  "  Perugia "  in  Mr.  Symonds's  Sketches  in  Greece 
and  Italy. 


THE  NOTE  OF  THE  AGE  109 

her  despot,  without  the  dangers  of  a  despot's  throne. 
Venice  was  secure  ;  freed  from  the  fatal  need  for  inces- 
sant and  feverish  action,  that  curse  on  all  the  other 
Signori,  she  could  bide  her  time  and  choose  her 
moment  to  strike.  That  moment  was  never  chosen 
wantonly,  but  always  with  a  distinct  and  reasoned 
view  to  her  own  requirements.  The  Venetian  Republic 
was  the  one  stable  element  in  all  North  Italy. 

It  was  an  age  of  exciting  change,  of  deep  and 
riveting  interest,  and  the  Carraresi  were  typical  of 
their  period,  not  only  in  their  politics  and  in  the 
vicissitudes  of  their  fortune,  but  in  their  private  life 
as  well.  The  men  of  those  days  were  "born  to  strange 
sights  "  ;  they  sought  them,  courted  them,  delighted  in 
them  :  nothing  could  be  too  strange  or  bizarre  for  that 
insatiable  thirst  for  novelty  with  which  they  burned. 
They  rung  the  joy  out  of  violent  changes  and  con- 
trasts. All  they  touched  was  embraced  with  ardour, 
from  a  headlong  debauch  to  a  religious  revival.  At 
one  moment  these  men  were  tearing  along  in  a  mad 
orgy,  at  the  next  they  were  covered  with  sackcloth 
and  ashes,  marching  in  the  rear  of  the  Bianchi  pro- 
cession,1 joining  fervidly  in  the  cry,  "Repent!  repent!" 
swelling  the  chorus  of  "  Stabat  Mater."  Few  were 
greater  proficients  in  the  invention  of  new  arts,  for 
public  as  for  private  life,  than  the  Visconti.  But 
nothing  could  save  these  men  from  the  doom  they 
dreaded  ;  they  were  condemned  to  plagiarism,  to 
repetition  and  sameness.  Each  draught  of  pleasure 
or  of  power  only  intensified  the  thirst  that  mocked 
their  impotence  to  satisfy  it.  The  forty  days'  tortures 
of  Galeazzo  Visconti  were  repeated  by  Francesco 
Carrara  at  Bassano  ;  2  but  the  master  had  at  the  same 


1  Chronicon  Patavinum,  ap.    Muratori,  Antiquit.  Ital,  Med. 
torn.  iv.  ad  ann.  1399  (Milano  :  1741). 

1  Azzari,  Storia  di  Milano,  ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Script,  torn.  xvi.  ; 
Galeazzo  Gattaro,  Istoria  Padovana,  ap.  Murat.  RR.  II.  SS.  torn.  xvii.  ; 
Verci,  Storia  della  Marca  Trhiigiana  (Venezia  :  1789),  bk.  xvi.  ad  ann. 
1373- 


i io  THE  CARRARESI 

moment  created  and  exhausted  the  idea.  All  that 
human  bodies  are  capable  of  enduring  he  had  forced 
them  to  endure.  It  was  in.vain  that  Carrara  cried  for  a 
fiftieth  day ;  the  limit  was  reached  ;  he  was  face  to  face 
with  the  impossible.  At  another  time  the  operation  of 
diverting  all  its  rivers  from  an  enemy's  territory,  or 
its  converse  of  drowning  the  foe  by  piercing  the  banks 
of  a  river  in  flood,  was  devised.  The  labour  was 
enormous,  but  delightful,  for  there  was  a  new  power 
to  contend  with,  a  new  opposing  element  even  more 
incalculable  than  man,  and  that  was  Nature.  But  the 
ruse  became  hackneyed  at  once,  and  we  grow  tired 
of  reading  the  story  of  works  on  the  Brenta,  the 
Bachiglione,1  the  Mincio,  unrelieved  by  any  variation 
except  that  now  and  then  Nature  refuses  to  bow  to  the 
whims  of  a  Lombard  lord,  and,  bursting  out,  sweeps  a 
Scala's  or  Visconti's  dams  and  embankments  to  perdi- 
tion. Again,  Can  Signorio  della  Scala  resolved  to 
murder  his  brother — that  was  common  enough ;  but 
coming  from  his  mistress,  there  was  the  new  touch. 
The  plan  succeeded,  and  was  soon  after  adopted  by 
Antonio  Scala,  who  killed  his  brother  Bartholomew 
on  his  way  home  from  a  rendezvous ;  and  certain  of 
the  Carrara  family  proposed  a  like  fate,  under  like 
circumstances,  for  the  head  of  their  house.  The  idea 
was  run  to  death  in  a  moment,  but  the  honours 
remained  with  the  inventor ;  Can  Signorio  alone  put 
the  finishing  touch  to  his  work  by  accusing  his 
brother's  mistress  of  the  murder  and  torturing  her 
till  she  died.  The  number  of  family  murders  was 
enormous.  In  seven  generations  of  the  Scala  house 
we  can  count  nine  such  treacherous  deaths,  an  allow- 
ance of  one  and  two-sevenths  of  a  murder  to  each 
generation,  and  that  inside  their  own  walls.2  The 
heads  of  houses  had  this  fate  constantly  before  their 
eyes,  and  yet  they  never  seemed  to  have  expected  it 

1  See  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ad  ann.  1387,  and  passim  ;  Verci,  op.  cit. 
bk.  xv.  ad  ann.   1368. 
*  See  Litta,  Famiglie  Cdebri  cf  Italia,  in  voce  Scaligeri. 


THE  NOTE  OF  THE  AGE  in 

to  overtake  themselves ;  so  Bernab6  Visconti,  when 
his  nephew  arrested  him,  cried,  "O  Gian  Galeazzo 
non  esser  traditor  del  tuo  sangue";  but  he  might 
have  known  from  his  own  experience  the  value  of 
such  an  appeal. 

These  men  were  indeed  "  born  to  strange  sights  " ; 
perhaps  to  no  stranger  one  than  the  mixture  of  chivalry 
and  treachery  in  the  story  of  so  many  noble  houses. 
Francesco  Carrara  the  elder  was  dubbed  by  Charles  IV. 
on  the  field  ;  and  no  doubt  he  deserved  it,  for  he  was 
a  brave  soldier :  but  he  immediately  conferred  a  like 
honour  on  a  number  of  Paduan  gentlemen ;  among 
them,  on  one  Zanibon  Dotto,  who  at  that  very 
moment  had  the  poisons  in  his  pocket  to  administer 
to  Francesco,  and  money  for  doing  so  from  Jacopino, 
Francesco's  uncle.1  We  cannot  help  feeling  that  these 
men  looked  upon  life  as  a  game  to  be  made  as  intricate 
as  possible  for  the  pleasure  of  playing  it.  Anything 
which  added  a  new  colour  to  life  or  imposed  a  new 
condition  on  the  game  was  at  once  adopted ;  and  so 
we  find  knighthood  and  treachery  side  by  side, 
accepted  as  facts  and  elements  to  be  manipulated. 
Anything,  on  the  other  hand,  which,  like  moral 
considerations,  interfered  with  the  development  of 
the  game,  or  crossed  the  path  to  the  end  in  view, 
must  be  left  aside — "  Si  violandum  est  jus  regnandi 
gratia,  violandum  est " ;  if  virtue  "  like  not  the  play, 
why  then  she  likes  it  not,  perdy."  All  things  were 
pardoned  to  the  man  who  played  the  game  success- 
fully. Here  it  was  not  a  soft  but  a  witty  answer  which 
turned  away  wrath.  Ubertino  Carrara  invented  a  grim 
amusement  for  himself,  to  while  away  the  time  till  he 
should  succeed  to  the  Signory.  He  and  his  com- 
panions used  to  roam  about  Padua  at  night ;  if  they 
met  a  citizen  or  a  merchant  going  home,  a  bag  was 

1  Cortusiorum,  Historia,  ap.  Mur.  RR.  II.  SS.  torn.  xii.  ad  ann. 
1354  ;  Gattari,  op.  tit. ;  Verci,  op.  cit.  ad  ann. ;  Cittadella,  Storia 
della  Dominazione  Carrarese  in  Padova  (Padova :  1842),  vol.  i. 
cap.  xxiv. 


ii2  THE  CARRARESI 

slipped  over  the  unfortunate  man's  head,  and  he  was 
dragged  about,  up  and  down  the  streets,  until  he  lost 
all  sense  of  where  he  might  be ;  he  was  then  taken  to 
some  house,  where  the  band  mystified,  bullied,  and 
frightened  him,  sometimes  to  death  and  always  until 
he  had  paid  a  large  sum  to  his  tormentors.  One  day 
Ubertino  caught  a  Florentine.  The  man  was  treated 
in  the  usual  way.  When  the  bag  was  taken  from  his 
head,  Lappo — that  was  his  name — asked  where  he  was. 
"  In  Trebizond,"  was  the  answer.  "  A  good  wind  and 
a  fair  passage,  gentlemen  ! "  The  company  relished 
the  wit  of  this  reply,  and  they  allowed  Lappo  to  go 
scot-free.1 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  picture ;  but  as  these  men  treated 
life  like  a  problem  in  chess,  so  their  lives  have  the 
interest  of  a  problem  for  us.  If  we  referred  to  the 
pages  indexed  as  ejus  mores  in  Muratori's  vast  store- 
house, we  should  find  much  that  is  terrible  and 
revolting,  while  making  a  large  allowance  for  the 
exaggeration  which  not  improbably  exists;  but  we 
should  also  find  an  infinite  variety  of  strongly  de- 
veloped characters,  each  one  defining  itself  clearly 
before  us ;  and  this  individuality  seems  to  be  the  real 
point  of  interest  in  that  curious  age.  They  were  people 
full  of  passion,  which  they  obeyed  unhesitatingly — 
"  Quando  viene  il  desiderio  non  c'  e  mai  troppo,"  said 
a  modern  Italian ;  and  so  these  elder  Italians  felt  and 
acted.  But  they  paid  dearly  for  this  loyal  obedience 
to  desire.  They  did  not  perceive  that  this  was  not 
true  liberty,  that  it  landed  them  in  a  cul-de-sac.  The 
attainable  was  exhausted  and  grew  insipid,  the 
unattainable  alone  had  any  attraction  for  them,  and 
so  they  were  condemned  to  an  endless  heaven  of 
hope  and  hell  of  realization. 

As  in  private  so  it  was  in  public  life.  Politics  was 
a  game  which  no  one  wished  to  see  ended.  Wars 
were  dragged  on  to  an  interminable  length  without 

1  Vergerius,  Vita  Carrart'enszum,  in  vit.  Marsilii^  ap.  Murat. 
RR.  H.  SS.  torn.  xii. 


one  decisive  blow,  because,  of  the  men  who  conducted 
them,  no  two  were  pursuing  exactly  the  same  object. 
Treaties  public  and  secret  crossed  and  recrossed  each 
other,  covering  the  face  of  Italy  with  an  intricate 
web.  Each  new  ruse  of  politics  became  irresistibly 
infectious  :  only  those  at  whose  destruction  it  was 
aimed  felt  any  alarm  ;  the  rest  stood  by  to  see  and 
learn  how  the  move  was  played.  We  might  almost 
draw  up  a  code  of  political  maxims  from  the  com- 
plicated history  of  the  time.  A  treaty  or  a  peace 
was  not  used  to  terminate  disputes  or  to  bind  allies 
together;  they  had  definite  and  special  uses  other 
than  these.  Treaty  faith  was  unknown,  and  leagues 
were  formed  for  this  purpose — that  they  enabled  a 
prince,  in  times  of  pressure,  to  buy  better  terms  for 
himself  by  selling  his  allies.  He  either  weakened 
the  league  by  withdrawing,  or  he  turned  his  arms 
absolutely  against  his  former  allies;  for  the  latter 
service  the  pay  would  be  higher.  A  peace  might  be 
concluded  for  ten  years  or  a  hundred,  though  it  was 
intended  to  observe  it  just  four  months.  Its  real  value 
was  to  gain  breathing  time  and  to  allow  the  universal 
bad  faith  to  explode  a  powerful  and  hostile  combination. 
Another  maxim,  and  one  which  Bernabo  Visconti  was 
never  tired  of  applying,  was — "Attack  others  before 
they  attack  you.  Choose  a  weak  moment  in  your 
neighbour,  and  strike  ;  if  not,  he  will  infallibly  turn 
on  you  in  your  hour  of  distress."  The  fatal  necessity 
to  extend  in  order  to  prevent  others  from  extending 
proved  the  ruin  of  the  Signori.  Having  once  entered 
on  the  path  of  lordship,  only  one  course  lay  open  to 
them :  headlong  they  must  go  or  be  lost ;  and  if  they 
went  on  they  were  equally  doomed  to  destruction,  but 
in  pressing  forward  lay  their  only  hope  of  postponing 
the  day  of  their  ruin.  Under  such  imperative  com- 
pulsion to  restlessness  and  aggression,  quiet  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  an  Italian  prince  was  absolutely 
unknown  and  unenjoyed.  The  Signori  were  to  the 
manner  born,  it  was  one  of  the  conditions  of  their 
VOL.  i.  8 


ii4  THE  CARRARESI 

life ;  but  for  the  people  this  feverish  atmosphere 
proved  an  endless  source  of  agony  and  torment. 
Again,  experience  soon  taught  these  politicians  that 
to  bend  was  not  to  break.  Suppleness  was  a  quality 
they  highly  prized.  Scala  and  Visconti  bowed  before 
the  whirlwind  of  John  of  Bohemia's  popularity,  but 
they  rose  again  behind  him  like  reeds.  Francesco 
Carrara  gave  way  before  Venice  and  saved  himself 
for  a  time;  his  son  Novello  refused  to  do  so  and 
was  lost.  Venice  herself  yielded  to  Hungary,  and 
surrendered  Dalmatia  to  avoid  worse  loss  ;  but  she 
never  intended  to  forgo  that  province  for  ever.  The 
constant  kaleidoscopic  changes  in  Italian  politics 
always  gave  a  hope  that  what  was  lost  to-day  might 
be  regained  to-morrow.  There  was,  however,  a  refine- 
ment on  this  maxim  of  momentary  cession  under 
pressure.  It  became  by  no  means  unusual  for  a 
prince  to  yield,  not  to  the  enemy  who  was  harassing 
him,  but  to  some  third  party.  By  this  means  he 
mortified  his  foe,  he  shifted  the  burden  of  the  war 
to  other  shoulders,  and  might  fairly  look  to  recovering 
what  he  had  lost  some  later  day.  Venice,  when  in 
the  agony  of  the  Chioggian  war,  handed  Treviso  to 
the  Duke  of  Austria ;  she  thereby  stole  it  from  Carrara, 
who  must  inevitably  have  captured  it,  and  at  the  same 
time  she  entailed  on  him  a  war  with  Austria  which 
materially  crippled  his  power. 

Under  the  Signori  the  townsfolk  suffered  terribly. 
The  government  of  the  despots  was  the  very  incar- 
nation of  a  sole  and  selfish  monarchy.  All  the 
resources,  all  the  machinery  of  the  state,  were  in  their 
hands,  to  be  used  for  their  own  individual  ends. 
Milanese  interests,Veronese  interests,  Paduan  interests 
had  no  existence ;  the  salvation  of  a  Visconti,  a  Scala, 
or  Carrara  were  the  only  purposes  to  which  the  lives 
and  wealth  of  all  these  unhappy  citizens  were  dedi- 
cated. It  is  true  that,  in  the  intervals  of  self-protection 
or  extension,  Can  Signorio  might  order  his  tomb,  and 
the  other  Scaligeri  build  up  immortal  monuments; 


VENICE  AN   EXCEPTION  115 

Gian  Galeazzo  might  design  and  dedicate  the  Certosa 
at  Pavia,  or  Francesco  Carrara  endow  the  university 
of  Padua  and  foster  the  wool  trade ;  but  what  could 
that  do  for  people  exposed  to  twenty  years'  unceasing 
war  and  in  daily  danger  of  pillage  ?  Venice  alone, 
with  singular  wisdom,  identified  herself  with  her 
subjects ;  she  did  not  exist  apart  from  them ;  all  her 
power  was  ready  at  any  moment  to  protect  her 
merchants  in  England,  in  Italy,  or  the  East.  Venetian 
interests  did  exist  ;  and  for  that  reason  we  cannot 
wonder  at  the  joy  with  which  the  lion  of  San  Marco 
was  hailed  as,  one  by  one,  Treviso,  Verona,  Vicenza, 
and  Padua  passed  under  the  dominion  of  the  Serene 
Republic.  Partly  debauched,  partly  terrorized,  the 
spirit  of  the  towns  was  crushed  out  of  them,  and 
they  suffered  in  silence.  They  passed  from  one 
master  to  another,  each  in  turn  glutting  his  avarice 
or  his  cruelty  with  their  wretched  bodies.  Feltre, 
Belluno,  Bassano,  changed  hands,  were  thrown  from 
the  Scala  to  Hungary,  from  the  Hungarians  to 
Carrara,  to  Austria,  to  the  Visconti,  resting  only  and 
at  last  under  the  wise  rule  of  Venice.  The  Signori 
made  a  point  of  holding  as  many  towns  as  possible — 
not  for  the  glory  or  the  strength  they  gave,  but 
because  they  passed  current  as  banknotes,  or  could  be 
sold  for  50,000,  70,000,  100,000  ducats,  or  even,  as  in 
the  case  of  Verona,  for  as  much  as  440,000  florins,  and 
therefore  could  be  used  to  buy  off  a  foe  or  to  purchase 
an  ally.  It  was  vain  for  the  people  to  cry  with  the 
citizens  of  Bologna,  "Noi  non  vogliamo  esser  venduti." 
They  were  sold  whether  they  wished  it  or  not. 

Looking  at  their  history  as  a  whole,  we  feel  that 
these  Signori  were  men  of  singular  force  and  power ; 
capable  of  all  things,  of  splendid  action,  no  doubt,  as 
well  as  of  that  which  they  really  achieved,  ruinous 
failure.  But  the  spirit  which  filled  them  and  drove 
them  was  a  fatal  one  ;  it  compelled  them  to  the 
destruction  of  themselves  and  the  annihilation  of  their 
country.  Their  story  is  a  tragedy. 


ii6  THE  CARRARESI 

It  was  among  men  like  this  and  in  such  times  that 
the  family  of  Carrara,  nobles  of  Padua,  emerged  and 
made  themselves  famous.  Almost  the  first  we  hear 
of  them  was  a  disastrous  episode ;  and  a  Thyestean 
destiny  dogged  their  steps  unto  the  end.  Padua  had 
always  been  strongly  Guelf  in  sympathy  ;  the 
Carraresi  were  by  birth  and  gifts  partisans  of  the 
emperor,  with  imperial  diplomas  and  privileges  dating 
back  as  far  as  the  tenth  century.1  They  settled  in 
a  village  about  seven  miles  south  of  Padua,  said  to 
have  been  famous  for  its  wainwrights,  and  therefore 
called  Carrara,  but  now  Villa  del  Bosco.  The  mon- 
strous excesses  of  Ezzelino  da  Romano  threw  the 
Carraresi  into  the  arms  of  the  people,  and  it  was 
owing  to  this  change  of  politics  that  they  subse- 
quently became  lords  of  Padua  ;  but  at  first  it  cost 
them  dear.  In  A.D.  1240  the  head  of  the  house  was 
besieged  by  Ezzelino  in  his  castle  of  Agna.  The 
tyrant  pressed  the  siege  so  vigorously  that  surrender 
became  inevitable.  Jacopo  Carrara  determined  to 
save  as  much  of  his  inheritance  as  he  could.  The 
castle  stood  in  the  middle  of  a  small  lake.  A  boat 
was  made  ready  under  the  walls,  and  one  night  all  the 
ladies  of  the  house,  the  jewels,  the  gold,  and  the  title- 
deeds  were  put  on  board  and  the  boat  pushed  off. 
But  they  had  been  anxious  to  save  too  much,  and  so 
lost  all ;  for  before  the  boat  had  got  half-way  across 
the  lake,  it  capsized,  and  everybody  and  everything 
went  down.  The  place  afterwards  bore  the  name  of 
the  Lago  delle  Donne.2 

Not  only  the  Carraresi,  but  Padua  also  suffered  for 
herGuelfish  sympathies.  In  the  year  1312  Can  Grande 
della  Scala,  as  imperial  vicar,  took  Vicenza  from  the 
Paduans,  and  the  next  six  years  were  spent  in  fruitless 
efforts  on  the  part  of  Padua  to  recover  the  city.  In 

1  Cittadella,  op.  cit.  vol.  i.  cap.  vii.  ;  Litta,  in  voce  Carraresi. 
The  family  was  probably  Lombard,  to  judge  by  the  early  names  we 
find,  as  Gumbert  and  Litolf.  See  Vergerius,  op.  cit. 

'  Vergerius,  op.  cit. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FAMILY  117 

one  of  the  many  assaults  on  Vicenza,  Jacopo  Carrara1 
and  his  nephew  Marsiglio  were  taken  prisoners  and 
carried  to  Verona.  There  they  ingratiated  themselves 
with  the  Scala  family,  and  eventually  effected  a  peace 
between  Verona  and  Padua.  The  Paduans  hailed 
Jacopo,  on  his  return,  as  the  saviour  of  his  country ; 
and  in  gratitude  for  the  peace,  and  to  put  an  end  to 
the  agony  of  the  town,  which  was  being  devoured  by 
the  rapacity  of  the  usurers,  the  Ronchi  and  Alticlini2 
— of  whom  the  chronicler  remarks,  "  In  iis  voluptas 
peccandi  erat  summa  " — they  chose  him  captain  of  the 
people  (1318).  The  relations  between  Padua  and 
Verona  seemed  amicably  arranged,  and  at  one  of  the 
last  diplomatic  interviews  which  Jacopo  held  with 
Can  Grande  an  amusing  incident  occurred.  Carrara 
and  Scala  were  walking  in  a  garden  under  the  walls 
of  Padua ;  they  came  to  a  door  too  narrow  to  allow 
them  to  pass  through  arm  in  arm ;  neither  would 
take  the  precedence,  and  the  grave  matters  under 
discussion  seemed  likely  to  be  indefinitely  postponed, 
when  a  court  jester  solved  the  difficulty  by  crying, 
"Let  the  biggest  fool  go  first";  instantly  both  leaped 
forward  to  claim  that  honour,  and  the  obstructing 
door  was  cleared. 
Jacopo  died  and  left  the  lordship  to  his  nephew 

1  Jacopo  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  violent  temper.     In  this 
assault  he  was  wounded  in  the  leg  before  surrendering.     He  asked 
his  captor  to  take  off  his  greaves  ;  in  doing  so  the  man  hurt  him,  and 
received  a  smart  box  on  the  ear  to  teach  him  gentleness.     At  another 
time  he  was  hearing  causes  in  Padua.     An  importunate  suitor  annoyed 
him  by  his  persistence  ;  Jacopo  leaned  down  and  whispered  in  the 
man's  ear,  "  I'll  cut  your  tongue  out."    The  brutality  of  the  threat 
and  its  probable  execution  had  the  desired  effect.     See  Vergerius, 
op.  cit. 

2  The  three  young  Alticlini  and   the   two  Ronchi  seem  to  have 
tortured  Padua  to  their  hearts'  content.     The  account  of  their  dun- 
geons and  prisons,  if  true,  is  horrible,  and  their  misdeeds  are  thus 
summed  up  :  "  Furta,  fraudes,  adulteria,  stupra  quae  apud  alios  gravia 
videri  solent  nihili   apud  eos   aestimabantur.     Caedes   non  nisi   per 
summam    crudelitatem   placebant,   rapinae    non    nisi    per    summam 
crudelitatem  extortae" — Vergerius,  op.  cit. 


ii8  THE  CARRARESI 

Marsiglio,  a  man  of  ready  resource  and  deep  cunning — 
"  simulare  et  dissimulare  facile  doctus."  l  But  all  his 
powers  could  not  stop  the  approach  of  Can  Grande, 
who  had  resolved  to  possess  Padua  as  well  as  Vicenza. 
Marsiglio  was  pressed  from  without  and  threatened 
from  within  by  members  of  his  own  family ;  Nicolo 
Carrara  was  jealous  of  him,  and  was  making  a  bid 
for  the  support  of  Verona.  In  the  year  1328  Marsiglio 
found  himself  compelled  to  give  his  cousin  Taddea  in 
marriage  to  Mastino,  nephew  and  heir  to  Can  Grande, 
and  with  her  the  city  of  Padua  for  a  dowry.  Scala 
became  lord  of  Padua,  and  Marsiglio  received  it 
back  from  him  as  his  governor.  From  that  moment 
Marsiglio  conceived  a  violent  hatred  for  the  whole 
house  of  Scala ;  but  he  had  to  bide  the  time  for  his 
revenge.  Next  year  death  carried  off  Can  Grande 
at  Treviso ;  he  died,  and  left  his  vast  princedom 
and  his  vaster  designs  to  his  nephew  Mastino. 
Marsiglio  saw  his  opportunity  and  set  to  work ;  he 
inflamed  the  mind  of  Scala  against  Venice — the  one 
power  able  to  check  the  growing  power  of  the 
Scaligers ;  he  urged  Mastino  to  defy  and  crush  the 
Republic.  Differences,  chiefly  on  the  subject  of  the 
salt-pans,2  were  fostered  and  fomented  ;  and  Marsiglio, 
blindly  trusted  by  Scala,  accepted  an  embassy  to 
Venice  with  full  powers  to  arrange  the  difficulties. 
He  used  his  full  powers  to  arrange  matters  after  his 
own  mind.  One  day  he  sat  at  dinner  next  the  doge ; 
and  as  the  story  goes,  he  said,  "  I  wish  to  speak  to 
you."  The  doge  dropped  his  napkin  ;  both  stooped 
to  pick  it  up.  Marsiglio  whispered,  "What  reward 
for  the  man  who  should  give  you  Padua  ? "  "  We 
should  make  him  Signore,"  was  the  reply.  When  the 
two  heads  rose  again  above  the  table  the  terms  had 
been  agreed  on.  Marsiglio  was  to  seize  Padua  by  the 

1  Vergerius,  op.  tit. 

*  See  Romanin,  op.  cit.  torn.  iii.  pp.  118-20;  I  Commemoriali 
(Venezia :  1878),  lib.  iii.  p.  384,  ad  ann.  1336;  Verci,  lib.  x.,  where 
many  documents  on  the  subject  may  be  read. 


GOVERNORS  OF  PADUA  119 

help  of  Venice  and  in  her  name,  and  to  receive  in 
return  the  lordship  of  the  city  at  the  hands  of  the 
republic.  Whether  the  story  is  true  or  not,  the  mean- 
ing and  result  of  the  episode  appeared  in  that  great 
league,  headed  by  Venice,  against  the  house  of  Scala, 
which  for  ever  put  a  check  to  Mastino's  ambition,  and 
in  two  years  stripped  him  of  Parma,  Lucca,  Padua, 
Treviso,  Feltre,  Belluno  and  Brescia;  leaving  him 
where  his  uncle  had  begun,  bare  lord  of  Vicenza  and 
Verona.  Out  of  this  struggle,  which  ended  in  the 
year  1338,  Treviso,  her  first  solid  land  possession, 
fell  to  Venice,  and  Padua,  Castelbaldo,  Cittadella,  and 
Bassano  to  the  prime  mover  in  the  league,  Marsiglio 
Carrara. 

The  story  of  the  events  in  Padua  which  preceded 
the  recovery  of  the  Signory  by  the  Carraresi  is 
curious  and  picturesque.  Alberto  Scala,  brother  to 
Mastino,  undertook  the  charge  of  Padua,  and  Ubertino 
and  Marsiglio  Carrara,  then  unsuspected  of  hostility, 
were  invited  to  help  him  in  the  government.  Alberto 
was  a  man  addicted  to  pleasure  ;  he  had  wounded 
Ubertino  in  his  family  honour.  Carrara  feigned  in- 
difference ;  he  laughed,1  but  he  put  a  couple  of  horns 
on  his  crest  to  keep  his  wrath  warm,  and  to  remind 
him  to  exact  vengeance  some  day.  Mastino  was  not 
without  his  suspicions  of  the  Carraresi,  and  these 
became  confirmed  after  Marsiglio's  visit  to  Venice. 
He  constantly  wrote  to  his  brother  Alberto,  warning 
him  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  two  Carraresi.  But 
Alberto  liked  the  complacent  husband,  and  thought  the 
Carraresi  amusing  companions ;  so,  by  way  of  joke, 
he  showed  his  brother's  letters  to  Marsiglio,  saying, 
"  You  see  what  he  would  have  me  do."  Carrara 
feigned  to  be  hurt,  and  indignantly  replied,  "  Those 
who  tell  your  brother  these  stories  of  me  never  gave 
him  as  much  as  a  coop  of  hens,  but  I  have  given  him 
Padua."  Albert  thought  the  reasoning  good,  and 

1  Muratori,  Antiquit.  ItaL  Medii  dEvi.  vol.  iii.  dissert.  36  (Mediol. : 
1740- 


120  THE  CARRARESI 

tried  to  soothe  Marsiglio.  Mastino  Scala,  however, 
grew  daily  more  alarmed.  He  sent  an  imperative 
order  to  Alberto  to  arrest  and  behead  the  Carraresi. 
Alberto  did  not  relish  the  commission,  but  his  brother 
was  not  to  be  trifled  with.  He  hired  several  assassins, 
and,  one  evening,  stationed  them  near  the  great  door 
that  leads  into  the  court  of  the  Palazzo  de'Signori, 
on  the  inner  side,  under  the  arcade ;  he  then  sent  for 
Marsiglio  and  Ubertino,  and  he  himself  waited  outside 
in  the  moonlight  to  see  the  end.  It  was  late,  and  the 
brothers  were  going  to  bed  when  the  message  arrived. 
They  were  surprised,  and  rather  suspicious  when  they 
heard  that  Alberto  wanted  them  at  such  an  hour  of 
the  night;  nevertheless,  they  obeyed.  A  horse  was 
brought  round,  and  just  as  they  were,  in  their  night- 
shirts and  caps,  they  set  out,  Marsiglio  in  the  saddle 
and  Ubertino  on  the  crupper,  holding  on  behind  him. 
Alberto,  from  his  place  under  the  outer  arcade,  saw 
the  brothers  come  trotting  into  the  piazza ;  his  heart 
smote  him  and  his  purpose  wavered.  The  Carraresi 
came  towards  him,  and  in  a  cheery  voice  Marsiglio 
cried,  "  What  the  devil  do  you  want  with  us  now  ? 
We  have  only  just  left  you.  We  are  sleepy,  and  wish 
to  go  to  bed.  What  do  you  want?"  Alberto  replied, 
"Oh,  I  want  nothing!"  "Well,  since  we  are  here 
we  will  go  in  with  you,"  replied  Carrara,  making  for 
the  archway  where  the  assassins  lay  in  ambush.  "  No, 
don't  go  in ;  don't  go  in.  Go  to  bed ;  I  want  nothing," 
cried  Alberto ;  and  the  two  brothers,  with  their  worst 
suspicions  confirmed,  turned  round  and  rode  off  to 
their  own  house. 

A  day  or  two  later,  Mastino  Scala,  seriously  en- 
raged, sent  a  further  letter,  threatening  Alberto  if  his 
orders  were  not  immediately  obeyed.  The  despatch 
contained  explicit  instructions  as  to  the  execution  of 
the  brothers,  and  it  reached  Alberto  while  he  was 
playing  chess ;  he,  without  looking  at  it,  passed  it  to 
Marsiglio,  and  went  on  with  his  game.  When  that 
was  finished,  he  turned  to  Carrara  and  said,  "Well, 


THE  CARRARESI   RECOVER  PADUA    121 

how  is  Messer  Mastino,  and  what  does  he  say?" 
"  I  have  not  read  the  letter ;  it  is  addressed  to  you," 
replied  Marsiglio.  "Take  it  and  read  it,"  said  Alberto. 
Carrara  opened  the  letter  and  read  the  order  for  his 
own  and  his  brother's  instant  execution.  "  Messer 
Mastino  is  very  well,"  says  he  to  Scala,  "  and  wishes 
to  remind  you  to  procure  a  peregrine  falcon  for  him, 
if  any  be  on  sale  here."  "  A  very  important  affair 
indeed,"  laughed  Alberto.  The  danger  in  which  they 
were  placed,  however,  determined  the  Carraresi  to  act 
at  once.  Marsiglio  stayed  with  Alberto  all  that  day, 
while  Ubertino  went  to  tell  Rossi,  the  Venetian 
general,  to  advance  next  morning,  and  he  would  find 
a  gate  open.  Alberto  was  awakened  by  the  uproar  in 
the  town.  He  went  out  with  Marsiglio  to  the  piazza. 
When  he  saw  the  Venetians  he  cried,  "  What  troops 
are  these?"  "  These  are  the  troops  of  Messer  Piero 
Rossi,  who  is  very  anxious  to  see  you,"  says  Marsiglio. 
"Shall  I  be  killed?"  asked  Alberto.  "No.  Go  back 
to  my  room  and  wait  for  me."  Alberto  obeyed ;  but 
the  result  of  his  waiting  was  that  the  Carraresi 
arrested  him,  and  sent  him  to  Venice,  where  he 
endured  three  years'  imprisonment,  the  ennui  of  which 
was  not  relieved  even  by  the  dogs,  apes,  and  buffoons 
so  liberally  supplied  him  by  the  doge.1 

Thus  the  Signory  came  back  to  the  hands  of  the 
Carraresi,  after  a  lapse  of  ten  years ;  but  Marsiglio 
enjoyed  the  fruit  of  his  labour  one  year  only;  he 
died  in  1338.  He  was  followed  by  Ubertino,  and 
then  by  five  others  of  the  house  of  Carrara,  as  lords 
of  Padua.  The  family  was  firmly  established.  They 
had  their  share  of  political  fluctuations,  and  per- 
haps more  than  their  share  of  violence  and  family 
murders — three  in  fifteen  years,  besides  many  trea- 
cheries and  conspiracies  which  proved  abortive.  Only 
one  feature  is  particularly  noteworthy ;  that  is  the 
dearth  of  children,  and  the  erratic  course  the  suc- 

1  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ;  Muratori,  Antiq.  Ital.  Med.  dEvi.  vol.  iii. 
loc.  cit. 


122  THE  CARRARESI 

cession  took  in  consequence.  Ubertino  was  fourth 
cousin  of  Marsiglio,  and  Jacopo  third  cousin  once 
removed  of  Marsiglietto,  whom  he  murdered  and 
succeeded.1  But  we  cannot  linger  over  details ;  we 
must  press  on  to  the  catastrophe  and  tragedy  of 
the  house  in  the  reign  of  the  last  two  princes.  Only 
one  more  story  from  the  life  of  Ubertino  Carrara, 
and  that  because  it  illustrates  the  touch  of  almost 
Caligula-like  madness  that  must  have  tainted  these 
men. 

Ubertino  lived,  on  the  whole,  in  friendly  relations 
with  Venice,  though  not  without  enemies  in  the 
Senate  and  Great  Council.  It  came  to  his  ears  that 
one  Venetian  noble  in  particular  was  especially  bitter 
against  him,  and  he  resolved  to  revenge  himself. 
Ubertino  sent  several  of  his  dependents  to  Venice ; 
the  senator  was  enticed  to  drink  some  wine  which 
had  been  heavily  drugged,  and  fell  into  a  deep  swoon. 
In  this  state  he  was  carried  to  Padua,  to  the  palace, 
and  put  to  bed  in  Ubertino's  own  room.  When  he 
woke  it  was  some  time  before  he  knew  where  he  was ; 
but  gradually,  through  the  dim  light,  he  saw,  on  the 
heavy  hangings  of  the  bed,  the  hateful  carro,  the 
shield  of  the  house  he  had  lately  attacked  so  violently. 
It  was  all  round  him,  on  the  pillars,  the  tapestries, 
the  ceiling.  He  leapt  out  of  bed  in  terror,  and  at 
that  moment  Ubertino  rushed  into  the  room,  crying, 
"What  are  you  doing  here?  How  came  you  here? 
I  know  you  for  my  foe.  You  are  here  to  seek  my 
life ;  but  you  shall  pay  for  it."  The  unfortunate 
Venetian  fell  on  his  knees  and  begged  for  mercy. 
Ubertino's  mood  changed ;  he  burst  out  laughing,  and 
said,  "  Very  well ;  I  only  wanted  to  give  you  a  lesson." 
The  senator  was  royally  treated  that  evening,  and 
sent  home  the  next  day.2 

The  family  went  on  prospering  till  we  come  to 
Francesco,  the  seventh  prince.  Francesco  succeeded 

1  See  Litta,  op,  cit.  in  voce  Carraresi. 
3  Vergerius,  op.  cit.  in  vit.  Ubertini. 


FRANCESCO  CARRARA  123 

in  joint  sovereignty  with  his  uncle  Jacopino.  But 
such  a  division  of  power  never  could  be  acceptable, 
and  almost  invariably  ended  in  violence.  Jacopino 
tried  to  poison  his  nephew,  and  Francesco  replied  by 
deposing  and  imprisoning  his  uncle.  In  the  year  1355 
he  reigned  sole  lord  of  Padua.  In  his  hands  the 
policy  of  the  house  of  Carrara  was  altered  with  fatal 
results.  Hitherto  the  family  had  leaned  much  on 
Venice,  and  had  maintained  friendly  relations  with 
her.  This  was  only  natural ;  for  Venice  had  saved 
the  Carraresi  from  the  Scaligeri  and  had  replaced 
them  in  power.  But  the  dangerous  ambition  for 
extended  territory  and  lordship  with  which  the  family 
had  been  inoculated  from  the  first  now  declared  itself. 
Francesco  determined  to  run  the  race  with  the  Vis- 
conti  and  other  Signori.  That  could  only  be  done 
by  freeing  himself  from  the  position  of  quasi-tutelage 
to  Venice  in  which  he  and  his  family  stood.  But  in 
adopting  this  policy  he  made  an  irretrievable  mistake ; 
he  looked  for  alliance  and  support  in  Germany,  in 
Austria,  above  all,  in  Hungary — a  power  far  removed 
from  Italy,  and  with  few  vital  interests  in  the  country. 
Perhaps  no  other  course  was  open  to  him,  after  once 
determining  his  line  of  action.  An  alliance  with  the 
smaller  princes  around  him,  the  Estensi,  the  Gon- 
zaghi,  the  Polentani,  lacked  strength,  besides  being 
useless  on  account  of  the  universal  bad  faith.  The 
Visconti  were  unscrupulous,  greedy,  and  least  of  all 
to  be  trusted.  By  union  with  Venice  alone  in  all 
Italy  could  he  hope  to  live,  and  he  had  decided  against 
her;  for,  while  she  protected,  she  liked  to  be  obeyed. 
But  it  is  improbable  or  even  impossible  that  this 
could  have  saved  him.  He  was  between  two  forces — 
Venice  and  the  Visconti,  who  were  destined  to  plough 
their  way  through  or  over  all  the  smaller  states,  to 
meet  at  last  and  struggle  for  supremacy  in  northern 
Italy. 

At  any  rate,   Francesco  chose   his    line,    and    the 
results  of  his   choice  were   seen   the  year  after  his 


124  THE  CARRARESI 

accession  to  sole  power  (1356).  Lewis,  the  King  of 
Hungary,  had  long  cast  a  greedy  eye  on  the  Venetian 
province  of  Dalmatia.  He  attacked  Venice  there  and 
also  in  the  Marca  Trivigiana.  Venice  called  on 
Carrara  to  help  her,  as  his  family  had  often  done 
before  ;  but  she  was  met  by  a  refusal ;  and,  more  than 
that,  Francesco  supplied  the  Hungarians  with  food 
and  forage,  supporting  them  where  they  most  needed 
support,  in  their  commissariat,  for  they  are  said  to 
have  put  in  the  field  an  army  of  forty  thousand  men.1 
The  conduct  of  Carrara  proved  a  bitter  surprise  to 
Venice,  all  the  more  stinging  because  of  the  great 
straits  in  which  the  republic  then  found  herself.  She 
had  lately  been  defeated  by  Genoa  at  Sapienza ;  she 
had  just  come  through  the  Falier  conspiracy ;  money 
was  scarce;  the  King  of  Hungary  was  before  Treviso  ; 
Visconti  and  Can  Grande  II.  had  bought  their  own 
immunity  by  supplying  him  with  troops ; 2  Venice 
virtually  stood  alone ;  and  now  Carrara,  on  whom 
she  relied,  had  failed  her.  Her  pronounced  anger 
showed  itself  by  the  withdrawal  of  her  podesta  from 
Padua  and  the  suspension  of  all  commercial  relations.3 
This  only  served  to  throw  Carrara  more  than  ever 
into  the  arms  of  Hungary.  Venice  could  not  forget 
nor  forgive  this  desertion.  But  the  wound  was  to 
be  made  even  more  piercing.  The  Hungarian  war 
moved  disastrously  for  Venice ;  Dalmatia  was  occupied 
and  Treviso  closely  invested.  The  pope,  however, 
had  been  watching  with  alarm  the  growing  power  of 
the  Turks,  and  now  insisted  that  a  peace  should  be 
effected  in  Italy  to  leave  room  for  a  crusade  against 
Islam.  No  crusade  was  possible  without  Venice; 
and  therefore  the  Hungarian  war  had  to  be  extin- 
guished. It  was  Francesco  Carrara  who  was  called 
on  to  bring  this  about.  If  anything  could  have  made 

1  Romanin,  op.  tit.  vol.  iii.  p.  199 ;  Verci,  op.  tit.  lib.  xiv.  ad  ann. ; 
Gattari,  op.  tit. 
*  See  Verci,  lib.  xiv. 
3  See  Romanin,  op.  tit.  vol.  iii.  p.  200. 


RUPTURE  WITH  VENICE  125 

this  peace  more  unpalatable  to  Venice,  it  was  the 
mediation  of  Carrara,  the  man  she  hated  more  than 
any  other  at  the  moment.  By  the  terms  which  he 
procured,  Venice  lost  Dalmatia  and  was  compelled  to 
respect  the  allies  of  the  King  of  Hungary ;  among 
them,  of  course,  Carrara  himself.  She  could  not  help 
herself,  and,  with  her  usual  good  sense,  she  made  the 
best  of  the  present  and  awaited  the  future.  So  when 
Carrara  came  to  Venice  in  1358,  he  was  well  received, 
and  was  presented  with  a  palace  at  San  Polo.1  Thus 
closed  the  first  rupture  between  Venice  and  the 
Carraresi,  peaceably  as  it  appeared,  but  in  the  end  it 
proved  disastrous  for  Carrara.  Francesco  had  made 
an  immortal  foe. 

Francesco  himself  was  deceived  by  his  apparent 
success ;  his  ambition  grew,  and  he  endeavoured  to 
secure  an  alliance  by  marriage  with  the  Visconti. 
Bernabo's  wife,  Beatrice  Scala,  called  "  Regina "  for 
her  pride,  discountenanced  the  match,  and  eventually 
put  an  end  to  the  negotiations.  This  rebuff  stung  the 
self-esteem  of  Carrara,  and  he  was  not  sorry  to  show 
his  hatred  of  the  Visconti  house  soon  after  by  assist- 
ing the  pope  to  hold  Bologna  against  Bernabo.  But 
it  was  a  fatal  policy ;  all  he  gained  was  a  distant  and 
doubtful  ally,  the  pope,  while  he  made  an  enemy  of 
his  near  and  powerful  neighbour.  He  had,  in  fact, 
placed  himself  in  a  vice,  one  iron  of  which  was  Venice, 
the  other  Visconti.  Though  he  could  not  see  the  end, 
it  was  all  the  same  inevitable — the  total  destruction 
of  his  family.  But  if  his  pride  was  hurt  in  one 
direction,  it  was  soothed  in  another  and  his  ambition 
encouraged.  For  Francesco  received  the  cities  of 
Feltre  and  Belluno  from  his  good  friend,  the  King  of 
Hungary.2  This  might  flatter  his  vanity,  but  it  proved 
at  best  a  doubtful  gift,  for  it  entailed  on  him  a  war 
with  Rudolf  of  Austria,  who  claimed  these  places  in 

1  Cittadella,  op,  cit.  vol.  i.  cap.  xxvi. ;  Verci,  op.  tit.  lib.  xiv.  Doc. 
1572  ;  Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  pp.  206,  207  ;  Gattari,  op.  tit. 
*  See  Verci,  op.  cit.  lib.  xv. 


126  THE  CARRARESI 

virtue  of  his  wife,  Margaret  Maultasch,  the  heiress  of 
the  Tyrol. 

For  the  next  nine  years,  from  1360  to  1369,  Carrara 
lived  in  a  constant  state  of  covert  hostility  towards 
Venice,  upon  the  subject  of  some  debatable  frontier 
territory  and  the  right  to  work  salt  on  the  lagoons. 
But  he  dared  not  come  to  open  war,  for  his  hands 
were  tied  by  fear  of  the  Visconti  on  the  one  side, 
and  by  his  struggles  with  Rudolf  on  the  other. 
Matters  at  last  came  to  a  crisis  when  Francesco  built 
two  forts  on  the  Brenta  and  Bachiglione  respectively, 
and  opened  a  free  market  at  one  of  them  to  the  con- 
siderable damage  of  Venetian  trade,  and  when  he 
further  confirmed  the  hatred  of  the  republic  by  tearing 
up  the  terminal  stones  which  divided  Valsugana  from 
the  Trevisan  march  and  planting  them  some  miles 
nearer  Venice.  The  Republic  felt  that  Carrara  had 
recommenced  his  old  policy  of  annoying  her  when 
she  was  in  difficulties.  She  had  just  escaped  a  serious 
danger,  the  loss  of  Trieste.  The  Duke  of  Austria 
had  appeared  before  the  walls  to  help  the  rebel  city, 
intending  to  make  the  place  his  own,  but  he  was 
repulsed  and  the  town  subdued.  Then  Venice  turned 
her  attention  to  Carrara  with  concentrated  fury. 
Francesco  saw  the  imminent  danger  and  implored  all 
his  friends  to  pacify  the  Republic.  Ambassadors  from 
Hungary,  Florence,  Pisa,  the  pope,  Siena,  and  Este 
flocked  to  Venice;  their  numbers  and  names  show  the 
width  and  strength  of  Carrara's  connections.  But  in 
Venetian  councils  there  existed  a  steady  determination 
to  punish  the  lord  of  Padua  ;  and  the  various  envoys 
made  little  way  towards  a  peaceable  settlement. 
Their  presence,  however,  suspended  instant  action, 
and  a  delay  of  several  months  was  granted  to  try  the 
effect  of  arbitration.  Carrara  made  use  of  the  interval, 
as  the  Italian  politicians  usually  did,  in  the  preparation 
and  employment  of  treachery.  In  the  middle  of  the 
lull  Venice  was  startled  by  some  alarming  discoveries. 
Three  Venetians,  women  of  the  people,  unearthed  a 


WAR  WITH  VENICE  127 

plot  to  murder  several  of  Francesco's  most  pronounced 
foes,  and  the  threads  of  the  scheme  were  traced  to 
Padua.  The  rumour  gained  currency  that  the  same 
hand  had  poisoned  the  wells,  and  it  became  necessary 
to  appoint  a  guard  to  watch  them  day  and  night. 
Lastly,  but  most  disturbing  of  all,  it  appeared  that 
Francesco  had  secret  information  concerning  the 
councils  and  intentions  of  the  government,  and  that 
from  officials  of  no  less  rank  than  two  chiefs  of  the 
court  of  appeal  and  one  of  the  Avvogadori.1  Rela- 
tions were  at  once  suspended  ;  war  became  inevitable, 
and  each  party  looked  to  his  alliances. 

Carrara  could  count  on  support  from  the  King  of 
Hungary,  who  sent  the  vaivode  of  Transylvania  with 
a  large  force  into  his  service.  By  way  of  answer 
Venice  tried  to  obtain  the  help  of  the  Duke  of 
Austria,  but  Carrara  bought  him  off  with  Feltre  and 
Belluno ; 2  only  stipulating  that  he  should  never  sell 
those  towns  nor  put  an  Italian  in  possession.  Venice 
secured  Can  Signorio  Scala  in  a  way  even  less  credit- 
able. Can  Grande  had  deposited  with  the  republic 
twenty-six  thousand  ducats  for  the  use  of  his  illegiti- 
mate children  ;  this  sum  was  now  handed  over  to  Can 
Signorio,  on  condition  that  he  should  attack  the  Pado- 
vano.  Both  parties  took  the  field,  but  the  campaign 
was  disastrous  for  Venice.  The  provveditori,  the 
government  commissioners  in  the  camp,3  quarrelled, 
as  usual,  with  the  captain-general,  who  retired  in  a 

1  Gattari,  op.  cit. ;  Daru,  Storia  delta  Republica  di  Venezia,  lib.  viii. 
(Capolago  :  1837)  ;  Vettor  Sandi,  Storia  Civile  della  Repub.  di  Venez.^ 
par.  ii.  vol.  i.  (Venezia:  1755);  Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  pp.  241, 
242  ;  Marino  Sanuto,  Vite  de*  Duchi,  ad  ann.  1369,  ap.  Murat. 
RR.  II.  SS.  torn.  xxi. 

*  Gattari,  op.  cit. 

*  The  Venetian  government  was  represented  in  the  camp  of  their 
commander-in-chief  by   two   officers   called  proweditori  in  campo. 
Their  duties  were  analogous  to  those  of  the  Spartan  ephors  in  the 
field.     The  general  was  supposed  to  consult  them,  and  they  kept  a 
watchful  eye  upon  his  political  relations.    They  were  a  necessity  created 
by  the  mercenary  system,  and  their  action  was  often  disastrous. 


128  THE  CARRARESI 

huff.  Taddeo  Giustinian,  his  successor,  was  utterly 
routed  and  made  prisoner.  In  this  battle  Novello 
Carrara,  twenty-one  years  old,  the  eldest  son  of 
Francesco,  distinguished  himself  by  his  bravery.1  He 
was  mounted  on  a  magnificent  war  horse,  himself  clad 
in  armour  of  shining  steel,  and  over  it  a  white  surcoat 
sown  with  red  carri,  the  cognizance  of  his  house.  The 
defeat  of  Giustinian  caused  great  alarm  in  Venice.  The 
Republic  hired  five  thousand  Turkish  archers  and  put  a 
new  force  in  the  field.  The  full  power  of  both  armies 
met  at  Lova,  and,  thanks  to  the  Turks,  the  Venetians 
won  a  complete  victory.  Among  their  prisoners  was 
the  vaivode  Stephen,  nephew  to  the  King  of  Hungary.2 
Carrara  had  tried  treachery  against  Venice ;  Venice 
now  replied  in  the  same  manner.  The  Republic  made 
terms  with  Marsiglio  Carrara,  offering  him  every 
support  and  a  large  portion  of  Paduan  territory  if  he 
would  murder  Francesco.  At  the  same  time  certain 
Paduans  also  came  to  Marsiglio  at  Venice,  assuring 
him  that  the  city  would  gladly  welcome  him  as  lord 
in  place  of  Francesco.  The  leader  of  these  was  a 
cleric,  one  Giacomo  Lione,  who  seems  to  have  borne 
no  very  good  character,  for  the  chronicler  says  of 
him,  "  Non  avendo  Dio  ne  i  santi  nel  mento,  ma  il 
Diavolo  solo  nel  corpo."  Giacomo  "  had  tasted  the 
sweets  of  the  Church,"3  and  desired  more ;  he  demanded 
the  bishopric  of  Padua  as  the  price  of  his  share  in  the 
murder.  All  the  details  were  carefully  arranged ; 
Francesco  was  to  be  stabbed  when  leaving  the  door 
of  his  mistress's  house.  But  two  attempts  failed — one 
because  a  messenger  opened  a  letter  and  read  it ;  the 
other,  because  the  would-be  bishop,  anxious  to  kill 
Novello  as  well  as  his  father,  urged  a  day's  delay.4 
Affairs  were,  however,  tending  towards  a  peace.  The 
King  of  Hungary  was  anxious  to  recover  his  nephew, 

1  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ;  Verci,  op.  cit.  lib.  xvi.  ad  aim.  1373. 

*  Verci,  loc.  cit. 

9  "  Avendo  gustato  la  dolcezra  della  chiesa." 

4  Gattari,  op.  cit. 


FIRST  PEACE  129 

the  vaivode ;  Venice  also  was  ready  to  treat,  because 
she  stood  in  a  position  to  dictate  terms.  Francesco, 
alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  losing  his  best  ally,  the 
Hungarian,  found  himself  compelled  to  submit;  and 
peace  was  concluded  in  the  year  1373.*  Venice 
intended  to  cripple  Carrara,  and  to  secure,  by  the 
severity  of  the  terms  she  imposed,  quiet  for  some  time 
in  that  quarter.  The  war  indemnity  was  heavy — 
as  much  as  two  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  ducats ; 
the  offending  forts  and  villages  on  the  Brenta  were 
razed  and  their  sites  desolated,  while,  as  a  scourge 
for  Carrara's  pride,  the  Republic  insisted  that  either 
Francesco  or  his  son  must  come  in  person  to  Venice, 
kneel  to  the  doge,  confess  their  fault,  and  beg  forgive- 
ness. Novello,  who  had  a  deep  affection  for  his  father, 
would  not  allow  the  old  man  to  go.  He  went  himself, 
and  with  him  Petrarch,  the  valued  friend  of  the  house, 
who  made  a  long  oration  in  praise  of  peace.  The 
part  played  by  the  great  laureate  in  the  political 
movements  of  his  generation  is  not  the  least  singular 
note  of  that  curious,  rich,  and  diversified  fourteenth 
century.  This  was  the  poet's  last  public  act,  for 
he  died  the  following  year  at  Arqua,  July  18, 

1374- 

The  severity  of  this  defeat  sobered  Carrara,  and 
for  the  next  few  years  he  remained  quiet.  Not  that 
Lombardy  was  quiet;  Can  Signorio,  the  last  legitimate 
della  Scala,  died,  and  Bernabo  Visconti  claimed  Verona 
in  virtue  of  his  wife  Regina.  After  a  long  and  disastrous 
war  the  two  Scaligeri,  Can  Signorio's  illegitimate 
children,  were  forced  to  buy  off  Regina's  claim  at  the 
price  of  four  hundred  and  forty  thousand  florins.  But 
this  war  had  another  result  more  intimately  connected 
with  our  subject — the  league  between  Scala,  Genoa, 
Hungary,  and  Carrara,  which  was  destined  to  bring 
Francesco  once  more  into  collision  with  Venice. 
Visconti  made  overtures  to  Venice,  inviting  her  to 
join  him  in  an  alliance  which  should  be  a  reply 
1  See  Romanin,  op.  tit.  pp.  245,  256  ;  Verci,  op.  tit.  lib.  xvi. 

9 


1 3o  THE  CARRARESI 

to  the  Scala  league.  Bernabo  was  determined  to 
absorb  Genoa  as  well  as  Verona,  if  he  saw  his 
opportunity ;  he  now  perceived  that  a  war  between 
the  two  maritime  republics  was  imminent,  and,  to 
further  his  own  views,  he  determined  to  hold  with 
Venice. 

The  never-ending  question  of  Eastern  trade,  so 
fruitful  of  quarrels  between  Genoa  and  Venice,  was 
always  open ;  but  at  this  moment  it  presented  one  of 
its  acuter  phases  in  the  difficulties  which  had  arisen 
as  to  the  possession  of  Tenedos.  War  was  ostensibly 
brought  about  by  the  rivalry  for  precedence  between 
the  consuls  of  the  two  republics,  when  Pierino  Lusig- 
nan,  King  of  Cyprus,  was  being  crowned  at  Famagosta. 
At  the  coronation  banquet  the  Genoese  so  far  forgot 
himself  as  to  throw  a  loaf  at  the  head  of  his  brother 
consul,  and  was  expelled  from  the  banquetting-hall.1 
The  end  of  this  fracas  was  the  war  of  Chioggia,  a  war 
disastrous  not  only  to  the  states  concerned  but  to  all 
Europe  as  well ;  for,  by  exhausting  Venice  and  Genoa, 
it  freed  the  Turk  from  the  control  of  the  two  naval 
powers  which  alone  could  have  held  him  in  check.2 
This  war  concerns  us  now,  however,  only  in  so  far  as 
it  affected  the  history  of  the  Carrara  family.  Francesco 
saw  with  delight  the  approaching  struggle,  for  he  was 
eager  to  shake  himself  free  from  the  peace  of  1373. 
He  joined  the  Genoese,  and  at  the  siege  and  capture 
of  Chioggia  he  and  his  Paduans  proved  of  great  help. 
The  town  was  made  over  to  him,  his  flag  floated  from 
the  palazzo,  and  he  added  "  lord  of  Chioggia  "  to  his 
titles.  He  must  have  known  how  bitterly  this  would 
sting  Venetian  pride ;  but  he  flattered  himself  that  her 
days  were  numbered,  that  Genoa  was  about  to  besiege 
and  sack  Venice  herself.  He  indeed,  more  than  any 
other,  urged  an  attack  on  the  city ;  and,  when  the  doge 
petitioned  him  to  receive  ambassadors  to  treat  of 
peace,  he  replied,  "  Not  before  I  have  bitted  the  horses 

1  Marino  Sanuto,  op.  cit,  ad  ann.  1378. 
*  See  Verci,  op.  cit. 


THE  WAR  OF  CHIOGGIA  131 

on  Saint  Mark's."  l  But  in  Italy  no  alliance  was  long 
lived.  The  Genoese  admiral  was  greedy,  and  quarrelled 
with  Francesco  over  the  booty  of  Chioggia.  Carrara 
withdrew  to  the  Marca  Trivigiana,  and  there  joined 
the  Hungarians,  who,  at  his  request,  were  besieging 
Treviso.  But  Francesco's  hatred  of  Venice  was  a  more 
pressing  passion  than  his  ill-humour  against  Genoa; 
so  when  the  fortune  of  war  changed,  and  the  Genoese 
in  their  turn  were  shut  up  in  Chioggia,  he  continued 
his  supply  of  provisions  and  war  material,  until 
Brondolo  fell  and  Chioggia  was  cut  off  from  the 
friendly  support  of  Padua.  The  siege  of  Treviso  was 
pressed  so  vigorously  under  Carrara/s  direction,  that 
Venice,  rather  than  see  it  fall  into  his  hands,  made  it 
and  the  whole  of  the  Marca  Trivigiana  over  to  Leopold, 
Duke  of  Austria.  In  fact,  Francesco  had  left  no  stone 
unhurled  which  might  wound  the  Venetians,  and  it 
was  by  no  means  an  adequate  retaliation  that  they 
thrust  him  into  a  war  with  Austria,  over  the  unhappy 
city  of  Treviso. 

The  peace  of  Turin  (1381)  put  an  end  to  the  Chioggian 
war.  The  terms,  as  far  as  they  concerned  Carrara, 
were  based  on  those  of  the  year  1373.  But  Austria 
did  not  appear  among  the  signatories,  and  Fran- 
cesco remained  free  to  urge  the  siege  of  Treviso, 
which  was  only  feebly  defended  by  the  duke.  The 
town  resisted  for  three  years,  alone  and  unsupported, 
except  by  her  hatred  of  the  Carraresi.  But  her 
bravery  availed  her  nothing.  In  the  year  1384  Leo- 
pold, rather  than  continue  his  feeble  resistance,  sold 
her,  with  Feltre,  Belluno,  and  Valsugana,  to  Francesco. 
This  was  a  large  increase  to  the  lordship  of  Padua. 
But  the  inflation  brought  its  inevitable  consequence 
of  jealousy  on  the  part  of  neighbours,  and  an  access, 
not  a  diminution,  of  the  thirst  for  territory.  Antonio 
della  Scala  had  set  his  heart  on  Feltre  and  Belluno ; 

1  Gattari,  op.  tit.  p.  305  ;  Cittadella,  op.  cit.  cap.  xxxviii.  Others, 
among  them  Chinazzo,  put  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  the  Genoese 
admiral. 


132  THE  CARRARESI 

he  now  saw  himself  robbed  of  all  hope  to  win  them, 
and  became  the  covert  foe  of  the  Carraresi ;  while 
Francesco,  holding  the  important  Alpine  passes  com- 
manded by  Feltre,  Belluno,  and  Valsugana,  ardently 
coveted  the  mastery  of  all  the  eastern  outlets  upon 
Italy.  He  saw  his  opportunity  when  the  pope  made  an 
unpopular  appointment  to  the  patriarchate  of  Aquileia. 
The  Udinesi  refused  to  accept  Philip  d'Alencon,  the 
pope's  nominee,  and  Carrara  was  called  on  to  compel 
their  obedience.  He  agreed  to  do  so  on  condition 
that  he  should  receive  Sacile  and  Monfalcone.1  If 
Francesco  had  succeeded  in  carrying  out  this  project, 
his  territory  would  have  stretched  in  a  semicircle  from 
Padua,  round  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  to  within  a 
very  short  distance  of  Trieste.  That  would  have 
proved  a  serious  menace  to  Venice,  placing  commercial 
routes  in  the  hands  of  an  enemy  and  virtually  confining 
her  to  the  lagoons.  It  was  obvious  that  she  could 
not  allow  anything  of  the  sort  to  take  place. 

The  Udinesi  were  secretly  encouraged  to  resist 
D'Alencon  and  Carrara;  a  league  of  small  towns 
was  formed  for  the  purpose,  and  Venice  supplied  the 
funds  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five  thousand  ducats  a 
month.  The  war  did  not  move  rapidly,  but  it  spread, 
as  every  war  inevitably  did  in  those  days,  when  each 
prince  was  armed  to  the  teeth  and  watching  his  neigh- 
bour hour  by  hour.  Venice  abstained  from  openly 
taking  part  in  the  campaign,  but  she  induced  Antonio 
della  Scala  to  attack  Francesco.  Scala  was  only  too 
glad  to  do  so,  in  retaliation  for  the  loss  of  Feltre  and 
Belluno.  No  sooner  did  Scala  take  the  field,  than 
Gian  Galeazzo  Visconti  saw  that  the  moment  had 
come  for  him  to  seize  Verona,  which  he  claimed  through 
his  aunt  and  mother-in-law,  Regina  della  Scala. 

The  appearance  of  Gian  Galeazzo  on  the  scene  was 
decisive  in  the  fate  of  the  Carrara  family.  He  was, 
without  exception,  the  least  scrupulous  and  the  most 
cunning  of  all  the  Lombard  Signori.  He  had  the 

1  Roman! n,  vol.  iii.  p.  318. 


GIAN   GALEAZZO  VISCONTI  133 

largest  army  and  the  longest  purse.     In  him  all  the 
restless  ambition,   as    well    as    the   deep   calculating 
faculties  of  his  family,   were  summed  up.     He  was 
perhaps  the  most  powerful  prince  in  Europe  at  that 
moment,  and  as  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  freedom 
of  Italy  as  Napoleon  subsequently  was  to  the  liberty 
of  the  Continent.     But  Visconti  never  lived  to  win  or 
lose  a  Waterloo.     Gian  Galeazzo  resolved  to  possess 
not  only  Verona,  but  Padua  as  well;  the  acquisition 
of  the   first,  however,  was  sufficient  to  employ  him 
at  present.     He  proposed  to  Carrara  an  alliance  by 
which  they  should  plunder  the  Scaligeri ;  Verona  to 
fall    to    Gian    Galeazzo    and    Vicenza   to  Francesco. 
Carrara  should  have  known  how  fatal  it  was  to  touch 
a  Visconti;  the  bait,  however,  proved  too  tempting, 
and  was  swallowed.     The  joint  forces  of  Milan  and 
Padua  entered   the  Veronese.     In  battle  after  battle 
Antonio  della  Scala  suffered  defeat.     In  vain  he  sent 
to  Venice  imploring  aid  and  urging  that  it  was  she 
who  had  thrust  him  into  the  war.1    The  charge  might 
be   true,  but  the  interests   of  the  Republic  did   not 
counsel  her  to  move;  and  she  allowed  the  Scaligers 
to  fall.     The  battle  of  Castagnaro  decided  their  fate. 
Verona  was  lost  by  treachery,  and  Antonio  fled  to 
Venice,   and   thence  to   Florence.     He  was  poisoned 
the  following  year  (1388),  between  Cesena  and  Forli. 
With  him  ended  the  house  of  Scala  as  lords  of  Verona, 
after  a  reign  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  years. 
Visconti  had  taken  one  step  forward ;  only  the  Gon- 
zaga  and  Carraresi  now  stood  between  the  mistress 
of  the  Adriatic  and  the  master  of  Milan. 

Francesco  paid  dearly  for  his  madness  in  trusting 
the  faith  of  the  Count  of  Virtu.  Visconti  was  not  slow 
to  take  a  second  step  eastward.  When  Verona  fell, 
Gian  Galeazzo's  captain  occupied  Vicenza  also,  before 
Carrara  had  time  to  seize  it.  Francesco  still  hoped, 

1  See  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ;  Cittadella,  op.  cit.  cap.  xlviii.  ;  Romanin, 
vol.  iii.  p.  320.  "Voi  m'avete  promesso  e  ingannato  con  isperanza 
d'  oviare  a  questa  lega,  e  hora  rimaniamo  ingannati." 


134  THE  CARRARESI 

however,  that  it  would  be  handed  over  to  him  in 
accordance  with  the  terms  of  his  treaty.  But  day 
after  day  he  was  put  off,  and  it  began  to  dawn  on  him 
that  he  had  been  duped  and  used  as  a  tool  by  Visconti, 
who,  at  that  very  moment,  meditated  his  ruin.  Beside 
himself,  he  turned,  but  too  late,  to  the  only  power  that 
could  help  him.  He  went  to  Venice  to  ask  her  aid. 
But  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  he  pointed  out  how 
dangerous  Visconti  might  become  to  the  Republic; 
the  Venetians  only  remembered  how  dangerous  and 
troublesome  Carrara  himself  had  proved.  They  re- 
called the  poisoned  wells,  the  lordship  of  Chioggia,  the 
siege  of  Treviso ;  they  hated  him,  and  he  had  nothing 
to  offer,  while  Gian  Galeazzo  was  there  promising 
them  Treviso  and  the  Marca  back  again  if  they  would 
join  him  in  despoiling  Carrara.  Venice  accepted  the 
league,  and  the  Marquis  of  Este  joined  it,  bought  by 
the  bribe  of  the  Castello  d'Este,  the  original  home  of 
his  race,  which  had  for  long  been  out  of  the  family.1 

Francesco  Carrara  stood  on  the  brink  of  destruc- 
tion. He  had  sown  the  wind  in  the  war  of  Chioggia ; 
he  now  reaped  the  whirlwind  of  accumulated  Venetian 
hatred.  He  found  himself  alone ;  his  friend  the  King 
of  Hungary  had  died  six  years  before,  and  arrayed 
against  him  were  the  two  great  powers  of  North 
Italy.  Nothing  could  save  him ;  but  he  made  one  last 
effort.  He  resigned  the  government  into  the  hands 
of  his  son  Novello,  and  himself  withdrew  to  Treviso. 
He  hoped  by  this  act  to  appease  Venice ;  and  Novello 
wrote  to  the  Republic,  urging  that  they  had  no  quarrel 
with  him  and  his  father  no  longer  reigned.2  But  this 
time  Venice  was  under  no  external  pressure ;  her 
hands  were  free,  and  she  knew  no  more  satisfactory 
way  of  employing  them  than  in  chastising  the  Carra- 
resi.  The  Milanese  and  Venetian  troops  pressed 

1  Romanin,  vol.  iii.  p.  321  ;  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ;  Verci,  op.  cit.  lib.  xx. 
ad  ann.  1388  ;  Cittad.  op.  cit.  cap.  li. 

1  The  traditional  reply  of  Venice  is  pithy  and  sums  up  the  situation  : 
"  He  who  is  born  of  a  cat  can't  help  having  fleas." 


FALL  OF  PADUA  135 

towards  Novello's  capital.  After  a  brave  resistance, 
and  chiefly  compelled  by  dissent  and  faction  inside 
the  walls,  he  yielded  Padua  and  himself  to  the  Count 
of  Virtu.  Treviso  was  occupied  by  Jacopo  dal  Verne, 
the  Milanese  general,  and  Francesco,  who  was  cap- 
tured with  the  town,  reluctantly  consented  to  entrust 
himself  to  Visconti,  under  promise  that  he  should 
have  liberty  to  go  where  he  chose.1  He  was  invited 
to  Cremona.  At  Verona  he  found  that  the  safe- 
conduct  was  a  blank  paper  in  the  eyes  of  the  Count 
of  Virtu,  and  that  he  was  in  reality  a  prisoner  under 
arrest.  He  never  regained  his  liberty,  but,  after  being 
moved  from  one  prison  to  another,  each  growing  more 
and  more  rigorous — from  Cremona  to  Como,  from 
Como  to  San  Colombano — he  died  in  1393  at  Monza. 
He  died  in  misery  and  actual  want,  robbed  of  his  last 
coin  by  Gian  Galeazzo.  Then,  as  so  often  happened 
in  Italy,  as  indeed  happened  a  few  years  later  to 
Novello  himself,  all  honours  were  lavished  on  his 
lifeless  body;  it  was  embalmed  and  sent  with  great 
parade  to  a  splendid  funeral  in  Padua.  Treviso 
was  handed  to  Venice ;  Verona,  Vicenza,  and  Padua 
remained  under  the  Count  of  Virtu;  and  the  Carrarese 
dominion  seemed  at  an  end  for  ever. 

Francesco  had  brought  the  ruin  on  himself  by  his 
persistent  hostility  to  Venice,  and  by  his  greed  for 
territory,  which  awakened  the  alarm  of  the  Republic. 
Out  of  all  the  long  embroglio  which  followed  the  war 
of  Chioggia,  the  result  was  this  :  that  two  noble  houses 
were  destroyed,  while  Venice  and  Visconti  remained 
the  gainers.  But  Francesco  had  spoken  a  true  word 
to  Venice,  though  her  hatred  prevented  her  from 
attending  to  it :  Gian  Galeazzo  was  a  great  danger, 
and  Novello  Carraro  was  destined  to  reap  the  benefit 
of  the  jealousy  which  inevitably  arose  between  Visconti 
and  the  Republic. 

The  next  two  years  in  Novello's  life  belong  to  the 
romance  of  history.  If  diversity  of  fortune  were  an 
1  Gattari,  op.  cit. 


136  THE  CARRARESI 

object  to  Carrara  and  his  brother  Signori,  he  must 
have  been  well  satisfied  with  the  results  of  these 
months.  By  the  terms  of  his  surrender  he  was 
pledged  to  go  wherever  Visconti  might  direct.  He 
was  ordered  to  Milan.  There  he  began  a  double 
game.  Nursing  in  his  heart  the  hope  of  returning 
to  Padua  some  day,  he  now  gave  all  his  attention  to 
allaying  Gian  Galeazzo's  suspicions.  He,  in  appear- 
ance, devoted  himself  to  pleasure,  to  dancing,  to 
jousts;  mixing  freely  with  the  gentlemen  of  Milan.1 
All  was  faithfully  reported  to  Visconti;  but  one  fox 
knew  another,  and  the  Count  of  Virtu  shrewdly  re- 
marked, "  Ogni  animale  si  domestica  eccetto  la  volpe." 
Novello  went  further  in  his  efforts  to  conciliate  Gian 
Galeazzo.  He  made  a  formal  and  voluntary  surrender 
of  all  his  rights  over  Padua  and  its  territory.  But  in 
the  middle  of  all  this  courtship,  Carrara  was  planning 
the  murder  of  Visconti.  He  proposed  to  surround 
him  one  day  when  out  hunting,  and  to  despatch  him. 
The  lord  of  Milan,  however,  was  not  so  easily  caught ; 
the  plot  was  discovered,  and  Visconti,  behaving  in  a 
truly  Viscontean  fashion,  pretended  that  he  did  not 
believe  in  Carrara's  complicity.  He  made  him  a 
present  of  the  castle  and  territory  of  Cortusone,  near 
Asti.  This  kindly  deed  was  only,  in  fact,  a  more 
intricate,  and  therefore  a  preferable,  way  of  secur- 
ing Novello's  murder;  for  the  people  of  Asti  were 
violently  Ghibelline,  and  their  minds  were  inflamed 
against  Carrara  as  a  Guelf.  They  were  aware  that  to 
despatch  him  would  be  no  crime  in  Visconti's  eyes. 
But  Novello's  acuteness  saved  him.  The  moment  he 
reached  Cortusone  he  read  the  situation.  With  con- 
summate address  he  called  the  peasants  together, 
made  a  humorous  speech 2  about  his  Guelfish  leanings 

1  "Diedesi  ad  un  altro  modo  di  vivere  ed  ad  un'altra  regola  della 
vita  sua,  andando  visitare  le  feste,  le  nozze,  e  davasi  al  danzare,  ed 
alle  giostre  ed  ad  altri  piaceri"  (Gattari,  op.  «'/.). 

*  He  began  by  assuring  them  that  "  lo  parlo  come  gentiluomo 
cacciato  e  non  come  S ignore." 


FRANCESCO  NOVELLO'S  WANDERINGS    137 

and  Ghibelline  birth,  and  ended  by  remitting  for  ten 
years  all  taxes  due  to  him  as  lord  of  Cortusone.  He 
converted  a  fictitious  hatred  into  a  real  gratitude.  In 
return  for  such  liberality,  the  peasants  told  Carrara 
that  in  almost  every  road  and  lane  an  ambush  lay 
concealed  against  his  life.  It  was  clear  that  he  must 
escape.  He  determined  to  make  for  Florence,  where 
the  hatred  of  Visconti,  and  the  alarm  caused  by  his 
attitude  towards  Tuscany,  promised  a  welcome  to  any 
foes  of  his  house.  Novello  announced  that  he  was 
vowed  to  a  pilgrimage  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Anthony 
of  Vienne.  He  left  Asti  without  giving  the  news 
time  to  reach  Gian  Galeazzo.  Accompanied  by  his 
brave  wife,  Taddea  d'Este — a  woman  of  nearly  inex- 
haustible fortitude,  as  her  subsequent  wanderings  and 
sufferings  proved — his  two  sons,  and  two  servants,  he 
crossed  the  Cenis  in  deep  snow,  for  it  was  March,  and 
made  his  way  by  Vienne  to  Avignon,  where  he  was 
well  received  by  the  pope.  From  thence  the  whole 
family  sailed  down  the  Rhone  to  Marseilles,  and 
there,  with  some  difficulty,  took  ship  for  Genoa. 
But  while  they  were  off  Hyeres  a  violent  storm 
swept  down.  Taddea,  who  was  near  her  confine- 
ment, implored  to  be  landed.  The  whole  party 
disembarked,  and,  keeping  along  the  shore  in  sight 
of  their  ship,  they  toiled  on  to  Frejus.  There  the 
wind  had  fallen  enough  to  allow  them  to  go  on  board 
once  more,  but  only  to  be  tossed  about  with  as  much 
violence  as  ever.  They  were  compelled  to  put  in 
under  Turbia,  and  spent  the  night  in  a  ruined  chapel, 
Taddea  sleeping  upon  the  broken  altar.  Next  morn- 
ing the  sea  had  hardly  moderated,  yet  they  set  out. 
At  Ventimiglia  they  stayed  for  food ;  but  they  were 
seen  by  some  of  the  natives,  who,  recognising  their 
quality,  told  the  governor.  He  sent  soldiers  to  arrest 
them,  and  the  party  were  forced  to  withdraw  to  a  wood 
and  defend  themselves  with  stones.  At  length  they 
were  close-pressed  and  in  great  danger  of  being  killed, 
when  Novello  offered  twenty  ducats  to  the  captain  of 


138  THE  CARRARES1 

the  band,  at  the  same  time  telling  him  that  he  was 
addressing  the  lord  of  Padua,  a  friend  to  the  King  of 
France.  After  some  difficulty  they  were  allowed  to  go. 
That  night  they  spent  on  shore,  not  far  from  San  Remo, 
and  next  morning,  half  starved  for  want  of  food,  one 
of  the  sons,  Ugolino,  set  off  to  forage.  He  came 
back  with  a  kid,  some  bread,  and  a  bottle  of  wine. 
The  whole  party  went  into  an  olive  grove,  lighted  a 
fire,  and  roasted  the  kid.  Two  of  their  number  kept 
watch  on  the  tree-tops  while  the  others  ate.  In  the 
middle  of  their  meal  the  watchers  cried  that  some  one 
was  approaching.  Novello  and  his  sons  drew  their 
swords  and  waited.  The  alarm,  however,  proved  to 
be  false.  The  men  who  now  entered  the  wood  had 
been  despatched  in  search  of  Carrara  to  tell  him  that 
Adorno,  doge  of  Genoa,  had  sent  a  ship  to  bring  the 
family  on  their  way.  The  Carraresi  were  cheered  by 
this  welcome  help,  and,  embarking  once  more,  they 
purposed  sailing  straight  to  Genoa;  but  again  the 
storm  bore  down  on  them,  and  they  were  driven  into 
Savona.  There  they  found  friends,  the  Florentine 
Donati  and  others,  who  prepared  a  supper  for  them, 
for  it  was  now  nightfall.  The  wanderers  had  not  sat 
down  to  the  food  they  needed  so  much,  when  a  message 
came  from  Adorno  telling  them  to  leave  Savona  at 
once,  as  Gian  Galeazzo's  emissaries  were  in  Genoa, 
threatening  instant  war  if  the  Republic  sheltered  the 
Carraresi.  Supperless,  they  went  to  sea  again,  and 
in  the  early  morning  put  into  Genoa  disguised  as 
pilgrims.  They  stayed  in  the  city  only  a  few  hours, 
and  then  sailed  away  down  that  fairy  coastland,  past 
Nervi,  Porto  Fino,  Santa  Margherita,  Rapallo,  till 
they  came  to  Porto  Venere.  There  they  landed 
and  went  to  a  small  inn  to  procure  some  food.  They 
had  hardly  tasted  the  meat,  when  Donati  rushed  in 
to  say  that  Galeazzo  Porro,  a  captain  in  Visconti's  pay, 
was  coming  with  forty  horse,  on  his  way  to  Pisa 
in  search  for  them.  Nowhere  could  they  escape  the 
lord  of  Milan.  The  whole  family  rose  in  haste,  and 


FRANCESCO   NOVELLO'S  WANDERINGS    139 

hid  themselves  in  a  neighbouring  wood.  The  strain 
became  almost  more  than  Taddea  could  endure — she 
nearly  succumbed ;  but,  supported  by  Novello  and 
her  own  high  courage,  they  both  pushed  on  to  Pisa, 
where  they  confidently  looked  for  help  from  their 
friend  Gambacorta.  It  was  evening  when  they  came 
under  the  walls  of  the  town.  They  found  messen- 
gers from  Gambacorta  awaiting  them,  to  forbid  thetn 
to  enter  Pisa  on  any  account,  as  Porro  was  on  the 
look-out  for  them.  Almost  crushed,  they  turned 
aside  to  a  little  hostelry ;  they  found  that  full,  and 
were  obliged  to  make  their  lodging  in  the  stables. 
Taddea  went  to  sleep  in  the  manger,  while  Novello 
and  Donati  divided  the  night  into  watches.  It  was 
near  midnight,  and  Donati  was  on  guard,  when  he 
heard  the  trampling  of  horses'  feet ;  his  alarm, 
however,  was  banished  when  the  new-comer  proved 
to  be  a  servant  of  Gambacorta,  with  horses  and 
refreshments  for  the  party.  Next  day  they  pushed 
on,  avoiding  Pisa,  and  reached  Florence  in  safety 
at  last.1 

The  hopes  that  Carrara  had  built  on  Florence  and 
her  aid  were  soon  dispersed.  He  received  a  cold 
welcome  and  a  hint  that  the  Florentines  would  not 
be  sorry  if  he  would  betake  himself  elsewhere,  as  they 
were  now  at  peace  with  Visconti.  But  Novello  knew 
that  any  peace  in  which  Gian  Galeazzo  had  a  part 
must  be  a  hollow  affair,  a  pace  volpina.  Sooner  or 
later  he  believed  his  chance  would  come,  when  Visconti 
attacked  Tuscany.  So  for  a  season  he  bore  the  cold 
looks  and  obvious  dislike  of  his  hosts.  And  his 
patience  met  its  reward.  A  change  of  feeling  took 
place  in  Florence,  and  she  began  to  arm.  Carrara 
received  the  offer2  of  a  company  under  Sir  John 

1  The  whole  of  this  story  is  beautifully  told  by  the  Gattari,  loc.  tit. 
Francesco,  languishing  in  prison  at  Como,  whiled  away  the  time  by 
telling  the  tale  in  terza  rima^  which  may  still  be  read  among  Lami's 
Delitia  Eruditorum^  torn.  xiv. 

*  Gattari,  op.  cit. 


140  THE  CARRARESI 

Hawkwood  ;  but  he  preferred  to  play  his  part  nearer 
Padua,  which  was  the  sole  object  of  his  policy.  He 
set  out  from  Florence,  intending  to  go  to  Bologna 
by  way  of  Ancona  and  Ravenna,  there  to  arrange 
an  attack  on  the  Milanese.  But  his  evil  star  pursued 
him.  The  winds  drove  him  past  Ravenna  to  Chioggia, 
in  Venetian  waters,  where  he  was  recognized  and 
forced  to  put  to  sea  again,  pursued  all  night  by  the 
Venetian  galleys.  He  escaped,  however,  and  reached 
Bologna  safely  ;  from  thence  he  returned  to  Florence. 
There  he  found  a  state  of  things  which  delighted 
him.  The  Florentines  were  now  eager  for  a  league 
against  Visconti,  and  Carrara  was  commissioned  to 
start  at  once  for  Munich  to  persuade  the  elector  of 
Bavaria  to  join  the  allies.  He  sailed  from  Leghorn 
to  Monaco ;  from  thence  he  passed  through  Geneva, 
Lausanne,  Lucerne,  and  came  to  Zurich.  There  he 
made  friends  with  his  landlord's  son,  an  Italian, 
young  Massaferro,  and  from  him  he  learned  that 
the  emissaries  of  the  ubiquitous  Visconti  were  even 
then  in  Zurich  looking  for  him.  He  left  in  haste, 
crossed  the  Lake  of  Constance,  and  reached  Munich. 
Novello  found  little  difficulty  in  persuading  the  Elector 
Stephen  to  join  the  league  against  Visconti;  and 
he  was  soon  able  to  send  the  news  of  the  elector's 
adhesion  to  Florence.  But  Gian  Galeazzo  was 
always  well  informed  of  what  was  passing  at  foreign 
courts.  When  he  learned  that  Bavaria  had  joined 
his  enemies,  he  sent  for  the  Florentine  ambassadors, 
who  were  as  yet  ignorant  of  the  fact,  and  who  were 
at  his  court  trying  to  arrange  a  peace.  He  apolo- 
gized for  keeping  them  waiting  so  long,  consented 
to  their  terms,  and  expressed  himself  anxious  to 
have  the  signatures  at  once.  The  courier  of  the 
embassy  reached  Florence  before  Novello's  mes- 
senger, who  conveyed  the  news  of  the  elector's 
adherence,  could  arrive,  and  peace  was  signed. 
When  Carrara's  envoy  from  Germany  reached  the 
city,  he  was  told  that  the  Florentines  were  sorry 


NOVELLO  RECOVERS  PADUA    141 

for  the  trouble  his  master  had  taken,  but  that  it 
was  too  late.  This  news  was  a  serious  blow  to 
Novello,  who  was  lying  ill  of  a  fever.  It  showed 
him  how  utterly  unsupported  he  was,  how  little 
he  could  rely  on  anything  but  his  own  courage.  But 
the  shifty  policy  of  Visconti  again  proved  his  best 
friend ;  a  rupture  soon  occurred  between  Florence 
and  Milan.  Novello  left  Segna  in  Dalmatia,  whither 
he  had  gone  to  see  his  sister,  to  whom  he  was 
devotedly  attached.  He  quitted  Dalmatia  with  better 
hopes,  for  at  Segna,  under  his  sister's  care,  he  had 
recovered  from  his  fever.  Moreover,  he  had  paid 
a  visit  to  a  famous  witch  who  lived  in  the  wild, 
mountainous  country  above  the  Dalmatian  coast, 
and  from  her  he  had  received  a  prophecy  of  good 
omen.  With  that  courage  which  never  deserted 
him,  he  set  out  to  recover  his  principality.  He 
entered  Friuli,  thanks  to  the  connivance  of  Venice, 
who  was  now  thoroughly  awake  to  the  Count  of 
Virtu's  unbounded  ambition.  At  the  head  of  a  small 
army,  recruited  chiefly  in  Germany,  but  swelled  by 
numbers  of  banished  Paduans  who  flocked  to  his 
standard,  he  pushed  straight  for  Padua.  There  was 
something  fascinating  in  Novello  himself,  and  still 
more  so  in  this  resolute  attempt  to  regain  his  city 
with  a  handful  of  men — something  attractive,  which 
engaged  the  imagination  of  the  people.  His  advance 
was  a  triumphal  procession.  The  month  was  June, 
and  in  every  town  bands  of  boys  and  girls,  crowned 
with  roses,  came  out  to  meet  him,  and  bid  him 
welcome  back  and  God-speed  in  his  effort  for  Padua. 
It  was 

Roses,  roses,  all  the  way, 
And  myrtle  mixed  in  his  path  like  mad. 

The  Paduans,  thoroughly  tired  of  Visconti  rule, 
hailed  Carrara  with  joy.  The  town  was  assaulted, 
help  given  from  within,  and  to  the  cry  of  "  Figliuoli, 
chi  m'  ama  non  m'  abbandoni !  "  answered  by  shouts 


142  THE  CARRARESI 

of  "  Cairo,  carro !  Carne,  carne !  "  Novello  entered 
the  city.  He  had  fulfilled  the  witch's  prophecy,  given 
to  him  in  the  mountains  above  Trieste.  "  In  the 
month  of  June  he  who  went  out  by  the  gate  came 
in  over  the  wall."  So,  after  two  years'  absence — 
two  years  of  extraordinary  adventure  and  wandering, 
of  incessant  plot  and  counterplot — the  Carraresi 
returned  to  their  own  place  039O).1 

The  safety  of  the  family  became  dependent  once 
again  on  Venice  ;  for  this  forcible  occupation  of  Padua 
entailed  a  war  with  Visconti,  and  Novello  alone  was 
no  match  for  the  lord  of  Milan.  But  Venice  was  glad 
to  see  Carrara  once  more  established  as  an  outwork 
between  herself  and  the  Count  of  Virtu,  and  she  offered 
Novello  abundant  though  secret  support  from  the 
treasury  of  the  Republic.  The  league  against  Visconti 
progressed  favourably  as  far  as  Carrara  was  con- 
cerned, and  in  1391  his  title  to  Padua  was  acknow- 
ledged by  Gian  Galeazzo,  though  at  a  rather  large 
price — one  hundred  thousand  florins.  For  the  next 
few  years  the  Carraresi  enjoyed  almost  the  only  quiet 
they  had  ever  known.  Even  so  they  were  not  without 
family  mishaps.  Novello  sent  for  his  wife  from 
Florence ;  but  Taddea  seemed  doomed  to  misfortunes 
on  all  the  many  voyages  her  fate  compelled  her  to 
take.  While  on  her  way  to  Padua  she  fell  into  the 
hands  of  one  of  those  robber  chiefs  who  lived  by  the 
ransoms  paid  for  their  prizes.  Taddea,  however, 
reached  Padua  safely  at  last,  and  the  family  hoped  to 
enjoy  rest  and  the  fruits  of  their  labour.  Novello 
seemed  willing  to  adopt  the  right  method  to  secure 
this  peace.  He  turned  his  attention  to  the  government 
of  his  city  and  to  the  encouragement  of  her  trade. 
But,  above  all,  he  drew  closer  to  Venice.  He  judged, 
and  rightly,  that  her  suspicions  of  Visconti  were  the 
guarantee  for  his  own  safety.  Gian  Galeazzo  had 
ruined  the  Carraresi  once  ;  but  the  security  of  the 
family  now  depended  largely  on  his  existence,  and  the 
1  Gattari,  op.  cit.  ;  Verci,  op.  cit.  lib.  xx.  ad  ann.  1388-90. 


THE  POLICY  OF  GIAN  GALEAZZO     143 

prosecution  of  his  ambitious  schemes  to  rule  all  North 
Italy.  Venice  was  compelled  to  protect  every  bulwark 
between  herself  and  the  Count  of  Virtu.  A  clearer 
political  insight  would  have  warned  Carrara  to  perse- 
vere in  his  present  line  of  conduct,  and  to  avoid  the 
possibility  of  a  rupture  with  the  Republic. 

The  next  seven  years  witnessed  the  growth  of  the 
Visconti  dominion,  and  the  various  transmutations  of 
the  league  formed  by  the  smaller  princes  of  Lombardy 
against  him.  Visconti  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
absorb  the  lesser  princes  one  by  one.  He  began  with 
Gonzaga,  probably  because  he  was  a  relation  of  the 
Visconti  ;  he  interfered  in  the  Este  succession  ;  he 
showed  a  desire  to  attack  Florence.  Everywhere  it 
was  clear  that  he  was  preparing  for  a  great  stroke. 
One  of  his  chief  and  most  pressing  objects  was  to 
break  up  the  league  in  Lombardy,  whose  hostility 
tied  his  hands.  For  that  purpose  he  endeavoured  to 
win  Carrara,  the  moving  spirit  of  the  league,  to  his 
side.  He  proposed  a  double  matrimonial  alliance,  as  a 
result  of  which  Feltre,  Belluno,  Verona,  and  Vicenza 
should  be  ceded  to  the  lord  of  Padua ;  he  courted  the 
young  Carraresi  who  were  sent  to  represent  their 
father  at  Gian  Galeazzo's  coronation  as  Duke  of 
Milan ;  he  remitted  part  of  the  sum  due  to  him  by  the 
peace  of  1392.  The  bribe  was  enormously  large. 
But  Novello  had  learned  by  experience  to  mistrust 
the  Duke  of  Milan  ;  he  had  unpleasant  memories 
connected  with  Visconti  and  Vicenza  ;  above  all, 
Venice  was  opposed  to  the  alliance.  Negotiations 
were  broken  off.  Venice,  and  indeed  all  Italy,  was 
now  thoroughly  alarmed  by  the  advance  of  Gian 
Galeazzo.  In  the  year  1399  Pisa,  Perugia,  Assisi,  and 
Spoleto  were  in  his  hands,  and  he  was  drawing  a 
cordon  round  Florence.  The  allies  invited  the 
Emperor  Robert  to  cross  the  Alps  and  crush  the  Duke 
of  Milan.  Robert  came,  and  with  him  the  Duke  of 
Austria.  The  Lombard  princes  flocked  to  join  him 
at  Trent.  But  before  Brescia  Visconti  routed  the 


144  THE  CARRARESI 

imperial  army,  which  was  saved  from  annihilation  by 
the  Carraresi  alone.  The  Duke  of  Austria  was  taken 
prisoner,  and  three  days  later  he  bought  his  liberty 
by  a  shameful  promise  that  when  he  returned  to  the 
emperor's  camp  he  would  seize  and  send  the  two 
Carraresi  to  Galeazzo.  The  plot  was  found  out,  and 
Novello  withdrew  to  Padua.  The  army  melted  away, 
leaving  the  Emperor  Robert  standing  alone  and  deserted, 
without  men  or  money,  a  laughing-stock  to  all  Italy. 

The  collapse  of  the  emperor  was  a  triumph  for 
Visconti,  and  he  at  once  made  an  advance  upon 
Bologna.  Jacopo  and  Francesco  Carrara,  the  sons  of 
Novello,  were  sent  to  help  the  besieged  city.  But 
the  town  fell,  and  the  two  young  Carraresi  were  made 
prisoners.  Their  escape  was  one  of  the  last  episodes 
in  the  family  history.  Francesco  was  entrusted  to  the 
care  of  Gian  Galeazzo's  general,  Facino  Cane,  to  be 
brought  to  Milan.  At  Parma  a  Paduan  living  in  that 
town  told  Francesco's  barber  of  a  secret  way  over  the 
city  walls.  The  same  evening  young  Carrara  slipped 
out  of  bed,  and,  putting  on  a  blouse,  sauntered  out  of 
the  house  whistling  ;  he  found  the  barber  and  the 
Paduan  ready,  and  the  three  dropping  from  the  wall 
escaped  to  a  wood,  and  thence  made  their  way  to 
Paduan  territory.1  Jacopo,  the  other  son,  waited 
longer  for  his  liberty.  He  was  entrusted  to  the  care 
of  Gonzaga,  lord  of  Mantua.  While  at  Mantua  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  playing  tennis  under  a  wall,  beyond 
which  lay  the  lake ;  the  balls  frequently  went  over 
the  wall,  and  one  day,  on  going  out  to  fetch  them, 
Jacopo,  who  had  been  informed  of  the  plan  concerted 
for  his  escape  by  a  letter  sent  to  him  in  the  belly  of 
a  fish  he  ate  for  dinner,  found  a  boat  ready  and  two 
faithful  Paduans  disguised  as  fishermen.  They  rowed 
him  across  the  lake  ;  horses  were  waiting  on  the  other 
side,  and  he  soon  reached  his  native  city.2 

1  Gattari,  op.  cit. 

2  See  Vergerius,  Sapphics,  for  the  return  of  Francesco  and  Jacopo 
Carrara,  ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  torn.  xvi. 


DEATH  OF  GIAN  GALEAZZO  145 

In  the  year  1402  the  Duke  of  Milan  had  matured 
his  plans,  and  was  ready  to  attack  Tuscany,  but  death 
cut  him  short  ;  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  plague  in 
September.  Though  Italy  breathed  the  freer,  yet  for 
Carrara  the  death  of  Visconti  proved  one  of  the 
greatest  misfortunes  that  could  have  happened.  As 
long  as  Gian  Galeazzo  lived,  Venice  was  bound, 
whether  she  liked  it  or  not,  to  maintain  friendly 
relations  with  all  the  smaller  princes  of  the  mainland 
whose  existence  Visconti  threatened.  But  now  that  he 
was  dead,  the  Republic  was  freed  from  that  necessity ; 
neither  Carrara,  nor  Gonzaga,  nor  d'Este  any  longer 
held  a  pledge  for  her  support.  But  more  than  that, 
the  empire  of  Gian  Galeazzo  was  not  well  cemented. 
It  had  been  held  together  merely  by  the  personal 
qualities  of  its  creator ;  on  his  death  it  fell  to  pieces, 
and  there  followed  a  struggle  for  the  fragments. 
The  universal  quickening  of  ambitious  hopes  which 
followed  the  death  of  Gian  Galeazzo  was  perhaps 
the  greatest  misfortune  which  he  inflicted  on  Italy. 
Every  prince  once  again  burned  with  a  fatal  desire  to 
extend  his  territory ;  Venice  felt  the  influence  no  less 
than  Carrara  and  the  other  Signori. 

The  relief  which  Carrara  and  all  Italy  felt,  when 
the  Count  of  Virtu  was  gone,  made  him  forget  that 
Venice  still  remained  a  potent  factor  in  the  problem 
of  his  existence.  He  believed  that  he  might  now 
with  safety  resume  the  ambitious  policy  of  his  father, 
and  the  opportunity  to  embark  upon  this  fatal  course 
was  ready  to  his  hand.  He  and  his  family  were 
really  foredoomed,  escape  was  impossible ;  but  it  is 
part  of  their  tragedy  that  they  were  compelled  to  be 
agents  in  their  own  destruction.  Carrara  accepted 
the  offer  of  Feltre,  Belluno,  and  Bassano  made  to 
him  by  the  duchess-regent  of  Milan,  who  desired,  as 
Gian  Galeazzo  had  desired,  to  weaken  the  league 
against  the  Visconti  by  seducing  Novello  to  their 
side.  More  than  that,  Novello  was  believed  by  the 
Venetians  to  entertain  designs  on  Ferrara,  and  was 

10 


146  THE  CARRARESI 

known  to  have  gone  there  with  an  unnecessarily 
large  troop  of  cavalry,  to  see  the  marquis,  who  was 
reported  to  be  dying.  Further,  he  allied  himself  with 
the  illegitimate  Guglielmo  della  Scala  and  his  two 
sons  Antonio  and  Brunoro ;  and  by  their  joint  efforts 
Verona  was  recovered  from  Milan.  But  della  Scala 
died  a  few  days  later,  on  April  8,  1404 ;  his  two  sons 
were  first  of  all  declared  lords  of  Verona,  but  on  the 
discovery  that  they  were  inciting  Venice  to  attack 
Novello,  he  arrested  them,  sent  them  to  Padua,  and 
proclaimed  himself  lord  of  Verona. 

The  whole  of  this  sudden  expansion  and  success 
was  fallacious.  Novello  stood  on  rotten  ground. 
He  had  no  real  strength,  and  was  unsupported  by 
any  alliance  which  could  have  justified  him  in 
offending  Venice.  Yet  he  hurried  on,  each  new 
acquisition  waking  a  deeper  alarm  in  the  mind  of 
the  republic.  The  duchess-regent  of  Milan,  whose 
government  was  weak  and  whose  state  was  torn  by 
internal  quarrels,  had  long  been  endeavouring  to 
win  Venice  to  her  cause  against  the  league,  and 
chiefly  against  Carrara.1  Her  first  overtures  were 
refused.  She  then  raised  the  price  offered  by  the 
addition  of  Verona  and  Vicenza.  Venice  hesitated  ; 
not  from  any  love  for  Carrara,  but  in  deference 
to  the  opposition  of  her  older  politicians,  who 
urgently  dissuaded  her  from  any  course  which  would 
embark  the  Republic  upon  a  land  empire.  At  last, 
after  long  debate,  the  proposals  of  the  duchess  were 
accepted  and  war  agreed  on.  This  was  Novello's 
death-warrant.  Affairs  were  precipitated  in  the 
following  way :  When  Carrara  seized  Verona,  he 
claimed  Vicenza  also.  But  that  city  had  always 
displayed  an  invincible  repugnance  to  the  Carraresi ; 
she  now  yielded  herself  to  Venice  in  order  to  escape 
Novello.  The  Republic  accepted  the  dedition,2  and 

1  Romania,  vol.  iv.  bk.  x.  cap.  i. 

8  See  Nuovo  Arch.  Ven.  torn.  v.  p.  383.  The  Senate  on  May  31, 
1404,  declared  their  position  thus  to  the  Milanese  ambassadors  : 


WAR  WITH  VENICE  147 

sent  a  herald  to  require  Francesco,  Novello's  son, 
to  raise  the  siege ;  in  an  access  of  fury,  Carrara 
mutilated  the  herald.  War  was  declared.  The  forces 
of  Visconti  and  Venice  invested  Verona  and  Padua  in 
1404.  But  for  a  year  and  a  half  the  Carraresi  held 
out.  Novello  was  indefatigable.  He  drilled  a 
militia,  and  himself  superintended  the  watches  on 
the  walls.  No  less  vigorous  and  brave  was  Jacopo 
at  Verona;  but  that  city  fell  on  June  3,  1405,  Jacopo 
was  sent  a  prisoner  to  Venice,  while  the  troops 
liberated  from  the  siege  went  to  swell  the  numbers  of 
those  attacking  Padua. 

Novello's  position  was  hopeless  and  terrible.  He 
was  deserted  by  his  sole  ally,  the  Marchese  d'Este, 
betrayed  by  his  general  Barbiano,  his  life  attempted 
by  his  kinsman,  another  Jacopo  ;  the  plague1  raged  in 
Padua,  killing  five  or  six  hundred  a  day ;  the  waters 
of  the  Bachiglione  were  diverted  and  the  flour  mills 
stopped.  Still  Novello  refused  to  yield.  Terms  were 
constantly  offered  him  by  Venice — a  large  sum  of 
money  was  promised  for  the  town  ;  but  all  efforts  were 
in  vain.  The  reasons  for  this  obstinacy  were,  first,  that 
Novello  still  entertained  the  hope  of  succour  from 
Florence — false  news  from  that  quarter  buoyed  him 
up ;  further,  he  wished  to  give  his  secret  schemes  in 
Venice  time  to  fructify.  He  never  abandoned  the  ex- 
pectation that  some  revolution  inside  that  city  might 
come  to  his  aid  ;  and  he  knew  that  if  he  were  captured 
now,  all  his  intricate  and  treacherous  correspondence 
with  certain  Venetian  noblemen  would  come  to  light, 
in  which  case  his  chances  of  mercy  were  small. 

"  Quod  veritas  est  quod  nos  dici  fecimus  domino  Episcopo  Feltrensi, 
dominis  Jacobo  de  Verme  et  Henrico  de  Scrovigniis  quod  in  casu  quo 
Illustris  et  excelsa  Domina  ducissa  et  filii  libere  traderent  nobis 
dominium  Civitatum  Vincentie,  Bassiani,  Feltri  et  cividadi  cum 
districtibus  et  pertinentiis  suis  ermius  contente  dare  sibi  ducatos  LX 
mille."  But,  they  add,  events  have  intervened  which  alter  the 
situation,  the  events  being  Carrara's  attack  on  Vicenza  and  the 
voluntary  dedition  of  the  city  to  Venice. 
1  See  Gattari  for  a  graphic  description  of  the  plague. 


148  THE  CARRARESI 

So  he  refused  offer  after  offer ;  each  time  the  sum 
proposed  as  the  price  of  the  city  growing  ominously 
less,  as  the  besiegers'  mines  and  covered  ways  crept 
nearer  to  the  walls  and  the  prospect  of  taking  the 
town  by  force  increased.  But  at  last  the  patience 
of  the  Paduans  was  exhausted  ;  they  would  endure 
no  more.  Novello's  own  hopes  died  away,  and  on 
November  17,  1405,  he  yielded  Padua  to  the  Re- 
public, and  himself  to  Galeazzo  Grumello,  her  general. 
He  and  his  son  Francesco  III.  were  sent  to  join  his 
other  son,  Jacopo,  in  prison  at  Venice. 

We  have  now  reached  the  end.  The  tragic  fate  of 
the  three  Carraresi  in  the  Venetian  prisons  excited 
much  comment  at  the  time,  and  has  given  rise  to 
considerable  dispute  subsequently.  As  usual,  there 
is  a  large  mythical  element  in  the  popular  story 
of  their  death.  The  secrecy  and  rapidity  of  the 
Venetian  government  lent  itself  to  all  who  were 
anxious  to  make  a  mystery  or  horror  out  of  the 
event,  and  this  the  Venetian  people  were  eager  to  do. 
They  hated  the  Carraresi,  and  received  their  prisoners 
with  savage  cries.  They  had  not  forgiven  them  the 
poisoned  wells,  and  were  only  too  willing  to  believe 
that  the  government  inflicted  tortures  and  agonies  on 
its  unhappy  foes.  What  really  happened  seems  to 
be  as  follows  l : — Novello  and  Francesco  were  im- 
prisoned in  San  Giorgio  Maggiore  until  the  Torresella 
dungeon  in  the  ducal  palace  could  be  prepared  for 
them.  During  this  time  they  had  an  interview  with 
the  doge,  and  the  elder  Carrara  expressed  his  peni- 
tence. The  Doge  Steno  replied  that,  if  he  wished  to 
show  his  contrition,  he  would  induce  Ubertino  and 
Marsiglio,  two  members  of  the  family  still  at  large,  to 
come  to  Venice;  the  Republic  was  anxious  to  have  the 
whole  of  the  race  in  their  hands.  The  Council  of  Ten 
proceeded  to  prepare  the  case  against  the  Carraresi. 
While  thus  engaged,  two  men  came  under  their  exa- 
mination. The  revelations  which  these  men  made  as 

1  Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iv.  bk.  x.  cap.  ii. 


THE  CARRARESI   IN  PRISON  149 

to  the  information  treacherously  supplied  to  Carrara 
by    certain  members   of   the    government    appeared 
so    grave,    that  the  Ten  asked  for  an    addition    to 
their  numbers,  and   sent  to  Padua  for  all   Novello's 
papers.     Among  these  papers  they  seized  his  private 
note-book,    in  which  were    registered   the  names   of 
those  in  his  pay  and  an  analysis  of  the  informations 
he  had  received.     These  discoveries  caused   a  panic 
in  the  government.     The  Carraresi  were  more  closely 
imprisoned  and  treated  with  rigour,  only  a  prisoner 
being  allowed  to  wait  on  Novello.1    The  Ten  asked 
for  a   further  addition,  and  sat  day  and  night.     The 
revelations,  which  continued,  grew  graver  and  graver, 
and   the  alarm   rose  in  proportion.      Compromising 
papers   were  found   in   a   boat  near  San  Basso,  and 
several    Venetian    nobles    became   implicated  in   the 
treason.     The  trial   of  the  Carraresi  was   postponed 
until  the   case   of    Pisani   and   Gradenigo   had   been 
disposed   of.      In   January,    1406,   sentence  was   pro- 
nounced on  both.     Pisani  received  five  years'  imprison- 
ment ;    Gradenigo,  three  years  of  exclusion  from   all 
offices.      The  trial   of   the    Carrara  family  was   re- 
sumed, and  the  Ten  prepared  the  indictment  on  the 
charge  of  secret  machinations  against  the  state,  which 
they  and  the  whole  court  held   to  be  proved  by  the 
papers    before    them.      They   delivered    sentence   as 
follows : — That  all  three  Carraresi  should  be  strangled 
in  their  prisons  ;    and  the  execution  was  carried  out 
at  once.      Novello   and   Francesco   are  said  to  have 
resisted  to  the  end,  struggling  fiercely  with  the  exe- 
cutioners.     Jacopo    submitted    quietly,    only    asking 

1  "Et  ad  servendum  eis  deputetur  unus  de  carceratis  qui  sit 
confidens  persona ;  et  dominus  Franciscus  tercius  filius  suus  remaneat 
in  carcere  Orba  cum  uno  ex  suis  pagis,  illo  qui  ei  placebit,  et 
alter  pagius  licentietur." — Misti,  Cons.  x.  p.  112,  ap.  Romanin, 
loc.  tit.,  where  we  may  read  some  curious  instructions  as  to  the 
keys  of  the  prisons.  They  were  locked  away  in  a  box,  the  key  of 
which  was  enclosed  again  in  another  box,  the  key  of  this  last  box 
being  given  to  the  doge  every  evening  and  taken  by  him  to  his 
bedroom, 


ISO  THE  CARRARESI 

leave  to  write  first  to  his  wife.1  Novello  was  buried 
next  day  with  great  pomp  in  the  church  of  San 
Stefano.2  The  people  endorsed  the  judgment  of  their 
government,  and  showed  their  own  relief  by  crying, 
"  Homo  morto  non  fa  guerra ! " 

Undoubtedly  the  real  reason  for  the  execution  of 
the  whole  family  was  the  discoveries  made  after  the 
fall  of  Padua.  During  the  siege  Venice  had  not  been 
excessively  harsh  ;  she  had  again  and  again  offered 
terms  which  men  in  the  position  of  Novello  and  his 
sons  might  have  been  glad  to  accept.  They  might 
have  sold  Padua  for  a  large  sum,  and  obtained  per- 
mission to  go  where  they  chose,  provided  that  they 
did  not  return  to  the  Padovano.  The  repeated  and 
apparently  irrational  refusal  of  these  terms  naturally 
exasperated  Venice,  who  was  at  a  loss  to  understand 
its  motive  until  the  damning  papers  came  into  her 
hands.  We  notice  all  through  the  proceedings  a 

1  Andrea  Gattaro  writes  in  tears  over  Jacopo.  This  is  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  young  Carrarese  :  "  Era  Messer  Giacomo  da  Carrara  di 
eta  d'anni  26.  grande,  e  tutto  bene  formato,  quanto  altro  cavaliere 
che  avesse  Lombardia,  bianco  come  la  Madre  sapientissimo  e  grande 
amico  di  Dio,  benigno,  misericordioso  ;  il  parlar  suo  dolce  e  man- 
sueto,  e  1'  aere  suo  Angelico,  ardito  ed  animoso,  fortissimo  e  virtuoso, 
che  veramente  se  avesse  avuto  vita,  sarebbe  riuscito  un  altro 
Scipione  Africano ;  ma  pure  cosi  hebbe  fine  il  corso  della  vita  sua " 
(Gattari,  op.  cil.  p.  941).  Here  is  his  letter  to  his  wife  Belfiore  : 
"  L'  infelice  tuo  sposo  Jacopo  da  Carrara  del  qual  so  che  avrai  pieta, 
perche  ti  sempre  sono  stato  grato  ed  amorevole,  ed  ora  son 
private  di  vita.  Ti  scrivo  questa  di  mia  propria  mano,  la  quale 
quando  avro  scritta  subito  saro  morto.  Sta  sano,  consolati,  ne 
cesserai  di  pregar  Dio  per  me  che  in  questa  vita  piii  non  mi 
potrai  vedere,  forsi  mi  potrai  vedere  tra  li  martiri  candidati 
appresso  Quello  che  regna  in  Cielo."  I  do  not  know  whether  this 
is  authentic,  but  it  exists  among  the  manuscripts  of  Count  Robert 
Papafava,  and  is  given  as  genuine  by  Cittadella,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii. 
p.  586. 

'  For  long  his  grave  was  supposed  to  be  marked  by  a  slab  bearing 
the  letters  P.  N.  T.,  which  were  read  as  "  Pro  norma  tyrannorum." 
But  Cicogna  has  shown  that  they  really  are  the  initials  of  Paolo 
Nicolb  Tinti,  a  merchant  buried  there.  See  Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iv. 
p.  41  ;  Sanuto,  op.  cit. 


DEATH   OF  THE  CARRARESI  151 

crescendo  of  alarm  on  the  part  of  the  Venetians. 
The  government  were  hurried  into  their  severity  by  a 
panic.  Nothing  terrified  Venice  so  much  as  intrigue 
among  her  own  nobles,  and  here  she  found  Pisani, 
Gradenigo,  and  Carlo  Zeno  all  seriously  implicated 
in  treason.  She  had  not  forgotten  either  Tiepolo  or 
Marino  Falier,  and  her  alarm  made  her  hasty  and 
harsh.  The  policy  pursued  by  Venice  was  so  direct, 
showed  so  little  desire  to  finesse,  that  it  startled  the 
other  Signori.  With  them  it  was  a  point  to  keep 
their  enemies  as  prisoners ;  their  exact  equivalent 
might  appear  in  the  market,  in  which  case  they  could 
be  exchanged  ;  while  dead  they  were  of  use  to  no  one. 
But  Venice  was  not  a  Signore  of  the  true  type ;  she 
had  never  hitherto  desired  to  touch  the  complications 
of  the  mainland ;  when  she  did,  when  she  found  herself 
forced  into  the  midst  of  them,  she  was  thorough. 
The  Republic  was  ready,  where  necessary,  to  adopt 
Machiavelli's  maxim,  that  if  compelled  to  kill  a  prince 
it  is  wisdom  to  destroy  his  whole  race  along  with  him. 
She  was  not  brutal,  but  only  cold;  with  a  constant 
desire  for  that  quiet  which  was  so  imperatively 
demanded  for  her  commercial  prosperity. 

The  Carraresi  died  ;  they  had  not  the  satisfaction  of 
foreseeing  the  day  of  reckoning  in  store  for  Venice. 
But  the  enormous  extension  of  territory  which  accrued 
to  her  on  the  fall  of  the  Carrara  family  awoke  in  her 
that  fatal  greed  for  an  empire  on  the  mainland  which 
turned  every  man's  hand  against  her  and  brought 
her  face  to  face  with  the  League  of  Cambray.  The 
Carraresi  were  extinguished.  Their  fate  was  typical 
of  that  which  awaited  almost  all  the  other  Signori. 
There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  terrible  nemesis 
which  pursued  these  men ;  caught  in  the  toils  of  a 
hopeless  passion,  dragged  on  whether  they  would  or 
no.  Theirs  was  a  restless  and  unscrupulous  ambition, 
compelled  to  move  forward,  but  foredoomed  to  failure 
and  death. 


Carmagnola,  a  Soldier  of  Fortune 

ITALY  has  experienced  an  almost  insuperable  difficulty 
in  achieving  union.  The  fact  that  the  difficulty  has 
only  now  been  overcome  serves  to  emphasize  the 
length  and  labour  of  the  process.  The  history  of  Italy 
is  the  history  of  highly  organized  but  conflicting 
particles.  The  episodes  of  her  development  depend 
upon  the  mutual  destruction  of  these  particles,  no  one 
of  which  possessed  sufficient  power  to  retain  its  own 
vitality  while  absorbing  that  of  its  neighbour.  We 
may  take  this  incapacity  for  unification  as  a  sign 
that  the  major  force  of  the  Italian  nature  has  been 
intellectual  rather  than  practical ;  that  Italy's  grasp 
of  understanding  was  complete,  swift,  and  sure  upon 
the  centre  of  each  situation  ;  as  the  note  of  a  character 
intellectually  occupied  by  the  problem  of  movement ; 
of  a  temper  interested  in  the  formation  of  many  types 
rather  than  in  the  selection  of  one  ;  of  a  life  always  at 
the  red-heat  of  revolution,  burning  continually  in  the 
fires  of  destruction  and  re-creation.  Her  acumen 
perceived  the  antithesis  too  immediately  upon  the 
thesis  to  allow  of  any  pause.  This  speed  of  vision 
contributed  to  rescue  the  country  from  thorough 
conquest  by  any  foreigner.  The  invader  was  dazzled, 
confused,  and  repulsed  by  the  rapid  changes.  While 
he  had  just  begun  to  recognize  a  direction,  Italy,  the 
land  he  supposed  himself  to  be  subduing  and  stamping, 
had,  as  it  were,  altered  its  identity — was  no  longer  the 
same  Italy ;  had  measured  all  that  the  conqueror 
could  do ;  had  reached  the  farthest  point  of  its  helix, 
and  had  already  commenced  the  backward  sweep. 


THE  NOTE  OF  THE  AGE  153 

But,  though  this  quality  helped  to  baffle  those  who 
attempted  to  master  the  country,  it  exposed  her,  inside 
her  own  borders,  to  unrest,  to  violent  change,  to 
warfare  among  her  vital  self-asserting  members,  to 
torture  from  her  own  too  active  self.  She  became  a 
land  of  contradictions ;  refusing  to  dwell  on  any  one 
moment  because  she  saw  that  it  was  only  a  moment. 
Each  statement  instantly  met  its  contradiction,  based 
upon  that  point  of  falsity  which  is  absolutely  insepar- 
able from  all  human  exposition  of  truth.  The  very 
power  that  enabled  the  nation  to  posit  the  obverse 
compelled  it  to  a  consciousness  of  the  reverse.  It 
was  condemned  to  a  perpetual  demonstration  of  in- 
stability, as  the  result  of  its  too  ardent  desire  to  find 
absolute  stability.  The  dynamics  of  balance  were 
always  potent  enough  to  destroy  the  statics.  There- 
fore the  people  who  had  dogmatized  faith  for  the 
whole  of  Europe  were  themselves  deeply  sceptical. 
Those  who  had  formulated  law  presented  a  chaos  of 
lawlessness.  The  Italian  epic  is  no  sooner  created 
than  it  offers  its  own  body  as  the  food  for  parody 
and  satire.  Conviction  and  calm  belief  were  im- 
possible for  Italy.  She  could  formulate  what  the 
northern  nations  accepted  with  earnestness — law, 
art,  religion,  the  idea  of  freedom ;  but  the  creator 
could  not  receive  its  own  creation  as  an  article  of 
creed. 

Among  the  many  particular  curses  entailed  upon 
Italy  by  her  fatal  inability  to  unite,  few  were  more 
widely  or  more  bitterly  felt  than  the  curse  of  mer- 
cenary troops  and  wandering  armies.1  Philosophers 
and  historians,  Machiavelli  and  Villani,  are  agreed  in 
lamentations  over  the  decline  of  city  militias  and  the 
supremacy  of  hired  arms.  These  wandering  bands 
were  in  their  origin  the  children  of  disunion,  and  to 
the  end  they  retained  the  marks  of  their  parentage. 
They  had  their  birth  in  that  necessity  which  compelled 
the  despots  to  use  foreign  troops  in  their  various  wars, 
1  See  Archivio  Storico  Italiano^  vol.  xv. 


154  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

either  against  their  brother  lords,  or  against  their 
native  town  whose  tyranny  they  were  usurping.  It 
was  imperative  that  a  tyrant's  soldiers  should  be  men 
of  no  party  ;  purely  fighting  men,  and  nothing  more  ; 
unfettered  by  any  ties  of  politics  or  blood.  Therefore 
the  Signori  called  to  their  service  Bretons,  Gascons, 
English,  Hungarians,  and  Germans.  Their  armies 
were  composed  of  men  and  officers  who  spoke  no 
Italian  and  whose  sole  glance  was  directed  to  the 
purse-strings  of  their  employers.  But  these  mercenary 
warriors,  bound  together  by  a  common  interest  which 
was  antagonistic  to  that  of  their  employers,  were  not 
slow  to  perceive  that,  in  order  to  make  their  own 
position  entirely  secure,  they  must  choose  their  leader 
from  among  themselves ;  that  he  must  be  a  man 
whose  sympathies  and  aims  were  identical  with  their 
own  ;  that  their  head  must  be  structurally  and  vitally 
a  portion  of  their  organism.  In  obedience  to  this 
instinct,  the  mercenary  army  which  Mastino  della 
Scala  was  forced  to  disband  in  1338,  when  it  found 
itself  without  a  master,  elected  Werner,  Duke  of  Wis- 
lingen,  as  its  captain ;  and  the  Grand  Company,  the 
first  fully  developed  company  of  mercenaries,  was  let 
loose  on  Italy. 

Under  Duke  Werner  the  Grand  Company  learned 
self-discipline  from  the  necessities  of  their  case. 
Beyond  the  circle  of  their  camp  the  world  was  all 
their  enemy.  But  it  was  a  world  that  had  neither 
unity  nor  force  enough  to  crush  them.  So  long  as 
the  outermost  line  of  their  entrenchments  remained 
unbroken,  they  were  as  united,  as  potent,  as  an  un- 
dissipated  poison-germ  floating  in  the  blood  of  the 
nation.  On  every  hand  they  were  secure.  If  war 
failed  them,  the  country  lay  open  for  them  to  pillage. 
The  burghers  were  wealthy  and  timorous,  the  peasants 
unarmed.  The  soldier  had  only  to  put  out  his  hand 
and  take  the  harvests  of  the  one  and  the  gold  of  the 
other.  In  fact,  the  mercenaries  discovered  how  to  rifle 
their  masters  ;  and  learned,  moreover,  that  they  could 


THE  FOREIGN  MERCENARY  COMPANIES    155 

do  so  with  impunity.  After  Duke  Werner's  death 
and  the  dispersion  of  the  Grand  Company,  two  other 
leaders,  Fra  Moriale,  a  Provencal,  and  Count  Lando, 
a  German,  continued  and  developed  the  traditions  of 
the  foreign  mercenaries.  Fra  Moriale  especially  was 
a  born  organizer.  He  attracted  to  his  standard  all  the 
evil  humours  of  Italy,  the  bankrupts  in  fortune  or  in 
fame.  The  nucleus  of  his  band  was  foreign,  it  is  true  ; 
but  many  of  his  soldiers  and  most  of  his  camp  followers 
were  the  ruined  outcasts  of  Italian  society.  This  is  a 
fact  of  signal  importance,  for  it  bore  directly  on  the 
development  of  the  first  company  of  native  as  dis- 
tinguished from  foreign  mercenaries.  Moriale's  work 
was  a  work  of  consolidation.  His  company  was 
governed  by  one  fundamental  maxim — absolute  liberty 
outside  the  camp,  rigid  discipline  and  justice  within. 
The  whole  band  was  drawn  closer  together,  and 
taught  to  look  upon  the  camp  as  their  city  and  their 
home.  Through  his  action  the  mercenary  army  be- 
came self-sustaining,  therefore  more  formidable  and 
longer-lived.  Moriale's  work  had  been  too  thoroughly 
accomplished  to  be  broken  up  at  his  death.  The 
mercenaries  elected  as  their  new  captain  Count  Lando, 
and  their  life  of  rapine  and  of  plunder  went  on 
as  before.  They  moved  freely  from  territory  to 
territory,  sweeping  the  harvests  from  the  fields, 
exacting  what  sums  they  chose  from  the  prince  or 
the  republic  whose  lands  they  occupied,  wearing  the 
country  barer  and  barer  by  their  depredations.  The 
burden  became  intolerable,  the  military  occupation 
showed  no  signs  of  coming  to  an  end,  and  Italy 
at  length  prepared  to  make  an  effort  to  suppress 
the  mischief  which  was  eating  its  way  into  her  very 
vitals. 

The  pope,  Florence,  and  Venice  joined  in  a  league 
against  the  adventurers.  Though  the  curse  of  dis- 
union, of  jealousy  and  conflicting  interests,  broke  up 
the  league  and  rendered  it  inefficient,  yet  out  of  this 
effort  came  the  purely  native  company  of  Alberico  da 


156  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Barbiano,  the  first  great  Italian  condottiere.  Blessed 
by  the  pope  and  fired  by  St.  Catherine  of  Siena, 
Alberico  won  the  victory  of  Marino,  and  from  that 
moment  the  nature  of  mercenary  warfare  in  Italy  was 
changed.  The  foreigners  disappeared,  and  Italians 
took  their  place. 

Italy,  however,  was  not  destined  to  escape  the  curse 
entailed  by  her  own  sloth.  All  she  succeeded  in 
achieving  was  the  substitution  of  native  adventurers 
for  the  foreigners  she  had  expelled.  The  change  in 
their  aspect  made  little  difference  in  their  character ; 
the  one  was  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  other,  inherit- 
ing and  continuing  the  same  traditions  of  war.  Italy 
had  hoped  to  free  herself  from  mercenary  arms ;  but 
she  failed.  The  triumph  of  the  Guelfs  and  the  in- 
surgence  of  the  communes  had  destroyed  the  aristo- 
cracy, the  nucleus  of  the  military  element.  The  leading 
politicians  now  were  merchants  or  bankers — men  who 
clung  to  their  money  and  believed  that  all  was  corn- 
passable  by  gold.  From  the  ranks  of  these  came  the 
Signori ;  and  they  set  themselves  more  or  less  deliber- 
ately to  debauch  the  citizens  and  to  render  them  effete. 
Their  policy  was  only  too  successful.  When  the  towns- 
folk preferred  a  tax  on  silver  and  on  salt — silver  for  the 
rich  and  salt  for  the  poor — to  military  service  in  defence 
of  their  liberty,  of  what  use  was  it  that  Boiardo  sang 
the  praise  of  chivalry  and  arms?  The  country  with 
its  own  voice  declared  itself  a  prey  to  the  mercenaries. 
The  essence  of  the  soldier-spirit  was  gone.  Italy 
turned  willingly  from  the  field  to  the  counting-house. 
She  shrank  from  the  constant  proof  of  her  arms, 
and  in  the  day  of  her  need  she  was  unable  to  bear 
them. 

The  native  companies  of  adventure  present  two 
marked  characteristics.  They  were  united  and  solid 
upon  the  basis  of  their  profession,  opposed  as  soldiers 
to  all  other  classes  and  professions  in  Italy;  they  were 
also  mutually  antagonistic  and  jealous  of  each  other 
inside  the  limits  of  their  profession.  The  previous 


THE  NATIVE  MERCENARY  COMPANIES    157 

existence  of  the  Signori  inevitably  determined  the 
aspect  assumed  by  the  native  mercenaries.  The 
minute  partition  of  Italy  among  pretty  tyrants,  swayed 
by  various  and  conflicting  aims,  prepared  the  way  for 
the  minute  divisions  of  the  great  army,  and  for  the 
existence  of  the  various  condottieri,  each  serving  his 
own  selfish  ends  and  standing  in  rivalry  with  his 
fellows,  a  rivalry  which  prevented  them  from  ever 
becoming  masters  of  Italy  in  any  permanent  sense. 
But,  though  cloven  and  broken  among  themselves, 
the  mercenaries  were  solid  and  cohesive  against  the 
world  outside  them.  The  reason  for  this  solidarity 
in  their  profession  lay  deep  in  the  spirit  of  the  race. 
The  Italians  never  possessed  the  sense  of  nationality, 
except  an  ideal  nationality  in  Rome.  They  were  there- 
fore able  to  experience  within  the  borders  of  their  own 
land  the  effect  and  the  fascination  of  cosmopolitanism, 
together  with  its  accompanying  democratic  tendency. 
An  art  or  a  profession,  not  a  city  or  a  country,  became 
the  bond  of  union.  The  true  patria  was  a  common 
enthusiasm  for  war,  for  painting,  for  scholarship,  for 
religion.  The  bands  of  adventure  are  not  a  singular 
phenomenon.  Side  by  side  with  them  there  rose  the 
companies  of  religious  fanatics,  the  school  of  John  of 
Ravenna,  the  workshops  of  Squarcione  and  Verrocchio. 
Alberico's  native  company  of  St.  George  was  the  matrix 
of  a  hundred  captains  of  adventure,  "  the  Trojan  horse 
of  Italian  warfare,"  from  whose  entrails  a  breed  of 
soldiers  was  born,  destined  to  cover  Italy  with  their 
arms,  to  make  her  theirs  for  a  time,  to  serve  their  pur- 
pose, and  to  pass  away;  just  as  John  of  Ravenna's 
lecture-room  was  the  Trojan  horse  of  Italian  scholar- 
ship, a  hotbed  for  the  growth  of  a  hundred  students, 
destined  to  seize  and  hold  the  world  of  lost  classics, 
to  recall  Italy  to  Rome,  to  serve  their  purpose,  and  to 
pass  away.  And  the  action  of  the  condottieri  and  of 
the  Humanists  is  very  similar.  Both  appear  as  inter- 
ruptions— the  one  in  the  political,  the  other  in  the 
intellectual  process.  Both  are  solvents.  Humanism 


158  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

proclaimed  a  doctrine  of  individual  freedom;  adventure 
destroyed  the  political  system,  breaking  down  the 
despots  and  paving  the  way  first  for  the  conquest  by 
Charles  VIII.,  and  then  for  the  ultimate  settlement  of 
death  under  Charles  V. 

The  result  of  Italy's  effort  to  shake  the  foreign 
mercenaries  from  her  throat  was  that  Italians  took 
the  place  of  strangers.  But  the  gain  to  the  country 
was  small.  The  chief  difference  between  native  and 
foreign  commanders  lay  in  the  systematization  of  arms 
which  the  former  effected.  The  Italians  made  an  art 
of  war,  as  they  made  an  art  of  everything  which  they 
touched.  Obeying  a  common  impulse,  the  captains  of 
adventure  turned  campaigning  into  a  game.  They  laid 
down  the  rules  and  imposed  the  conditions  under  which 
it  must  be  played ;  and  few  would  have  ventured  to 
violate  these  rules,  for  that  would  have  been  to  re- 
nounce the  role  of  artist  and  to  outrage  the  national 
instinct  for  limitations  and  precision.  In  fact,  war 
became  an  end  in  itself  and  not  a  means.  The  atten- 
tion of  commanders  was  directed  not  so  much  to  victory 
as  to  a  study  and  enjoyment  of  the  moves  by  which 
they  achieved  success  or  suffered  defeat.  Under  these 
conditions  the  art  of  war  soon  degenerated  into  a 
pedantry  that  admitted  such  an  anomaly  as  a  technical 
victory,  and  bore  its  fruits  at  Fornovo  and  at  Agnadella. 
And  the  laws  of  this  game,  drawn  up  by  professional 
soldiers,  were  framed  to  suit  the  soldier,  not  the 
prince  who  employed  him.  The  interests  of  a  general 
counselled  him  not  to  finish  any  campaign  too  rapidly; 
therefore  no  advantages  were  pressed  to  the  full,  no 
decisive  blows  struck.  As  a  point  of  military  etiquette, 
prisoners  were  released  immediately  after  an  engage- 
ment. Troops  went  into  winter  quarters  even  in  the 
month  of  August.1  To  prolong  a  campaign  was  to 

1  See  Battistella,  //  Conte  Carmagnola  (Geneva,  Sabilimento  dell' 
annuario  Generale  :  1889),  p.  182.  A  masterly  and  exhausive  treat- 
ment of  the  subject.  For  the  facts  as  regards  Carmagnola  I  shall 
follow  Sig.  Battistella  closely  throughout  this  essay. 


THE  NATIVE  MERCENARY  COMPANIES    159 

prolong  the  salaries  of  the  commander  and  of  all  who 
served  under  him.  Nor  were  the  leaders  unwilling  to 
make  service  as  light  as  possible  for  their  men.  By 
general  agreement  night  attacks  were  abandoned  and 
piquet  and  outpost  duty  might  be  dispensed  with  ; 
quarter  was  invariably  given.  The  life  of  the  common 
soldier  had  no  hardships  after  he  had  mastered  his 
drill  and  the  routine  of  service.  The  war  he  waged 
was  not  so  much  against  the  troopers  of  the  hostile 
army  as  against  the  unarmed  peasants  of  the  place 
where  he  might  be  encamped.  Wherever  found,  they 
were  his  prey,  to  work  his  will  upon  in  any  manner  he 
chose.  The  democratic  spirit  of  all  true  vagabonds, 
whether  students,  friars,  soldiers,  or  artists,  reigned 
in  the  camps.  The  soldier  began  life  upon  a  strict 
equality,  the  sole  title  to  distinction  being  excellence 
in  his  profession.  Personal  attachment  helped  to  bind 
the  men  to  one  another  in  a  union  as  fraternal  as  that 
of  a  monastery.  Beyond  the  lines  a  soldier's  freedom 
was  unrestrained.  "  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity" 
— the  watchwords  of  democracy,  of  revolution,  of 
socialism — were  the  motto  of  the  camp.  But  the 
democracy  of  arms,  as  it  manifested  itself  in  Italy, 
concealed  nothing  formative  within  its  breast ;  it  was 
chaos  come  again.  The  camp,  therefore,  attracted  all 
the  restless  blood,  the  strong  physical  natures,  the 
coarser-fibred  appetites  of  Italy ;  just  as  the  wandering 
religious  companies  attracted  those  of  imaginative, 
vague,  ecstatic,  and  ardent  temperament. 

Circumstances  rendered  the  position  of  the  con- 
dottieri  powerful.  The  Signori  were  compelled,  by 
the  pressure  of  their  neighbours,  to  use  these  mer- 
cenary captains  ;  but  they  were  costly  weapons,  and 
in  using  them  the  princes  became  bankrupt.  On  one 
condition  alone  were  the  despots  able  to  retain  the 
command  of  events.  Their  exchequer  must  be  full. 
But  it  was  only  the  wealthiest  states,  such  as  Venice 
or  Milan,  which  could  resist  the  drain  of  war.  The 
moment  the  despot  failed  financially,  the  captains  of 


160  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

adventure  were  masters  of  the  situation  ;  their  ruined 
employer  could  not  dismiss  them  unpaid,  nor  could 
he  hire  other  arms  against  them.  There  was,  how- 
ever, a  weakness  in  the  position  of  the  mercenaries. 
They  were  not  at  one  among  themselves  ;  they  could 
not  agree  to  conquer  and  divide ;  they  were  ready  to 
take  the  field  against  one  another,  not  to  destroy,  but 
to  supplant  in  the  receipt  of  salary ;  they  lacked  width 
of  ambition  ;  they  were,  in  fact,  for  the  most  part 
stupid.  The  weakness  showed  itself  whenever  the 
condottieri  had  to  deal  with  solvent  masters.  A  full 
purse  could  play  them  against  each  other,  and  store 
their  labours  for  its  own  advantage.  This  was  their 
real  danger.  Their  perilous  war  was  waged,  not  in  the 
field  against  their  brother  captains,  but  in  the  cabinet 
against  the  princes  who  had  escaped  financial  ruin. 
How  dangerous  this  conflict  might  be  received  con- 
vincing proof  in  the  tragic  end  of  so  many  of  these 
adventurers — Gabrino  Fondulo  in  his  iron  cage ; 
Vignate  executed  at  Milan ;  Carmagnola  beheaded  at 
Venice  :  these  we  must  remember  as  counterbalances 
when  we  think  of  Michelotti,  lord  of  Perugia,  or  Sforza, 
Duke  of  Milan. 

The  story  of  Carmagnola  illustrates  these  relations 
between  the  Signori  and  the  captains  of  adventure. 
His  career  offers  an  example  of  the  height  to  which 
a  condottiere  might  aspire,  of  the  mistake  he  might 
make,  and  of  the  fate  that  possibly  lay  in  store  for 
him.  The  problem  presented  to  Filippo  Visconti,  the 
last  of  the  Visconti  Dukes  of  Milan,  when  the  murder 
of  his  brother  Giovanni  Maria  left  him  sole  prince, 
was  how  to  recover  the  duchy,  to  which  he  had 
succeeded  in  name  alone.  On  his  father  Gian 
Galeazzo's  death,  the  dukedom  had  been  partitioned 
among  Galeazzo's  generals,  who  had  each  seized  the 
part  that  lay  nearest  to  hand.  Filippo  determined  to 
recover  his  lost  patrimony.  But  he  had  many  diffi- 
culties to  contend  with.  He  was  without  troops  or 
generals,  and  his  own  peculiar  temperament  offered  a 


FILIPPO   MARIA  VISCONTI  161 

serious  obstacle.  He  suffered  from  a  morbid  timidity. 
A  painful  sensitiveness  as  to  his  personal  appearance 
kept  him  in  torture,  and  forced  him  to  shrink  from 
all  publicity.  He  chose  to  live  hidden  away  in  the 
seclusion  of  his  palace,  surrounded  by  guards  whom 
he  distrusted,  and  over  whose  movements  he  set  the 
watch  of  other  and  more  secret  guards,  upon  whom 
he  himself  kept  a  furtive  and  a  timorous  regard.  He 
never  escaped  from  the  nightmare  of  murder.  He 
daily  changed  his  bedroom,  and  took  his  rest,  as  it 
were,  with  one  eye  open,  fixed  upon  the  cubicularii1 
who  protected  his  most  private  chamber.  Filippo 
was  possessed  by  the  Visconti  passion  for  intrigue, 
heightened  almost  to  the  pitch  of  insanity.  In  the 
recesses  of  his  palace  he  spun  from  his  restless  brain 
a  web  of  plot  and  counterplot ;  the  one  forestalling, 
crossing,  baffling,  defeating  the  other,  till  his  own 
perception  of  the  object  in  view  was  sometimes  in 
danger  of  being  lost  in  the  maze.  His  mind  presented 
a  pandemonium  of  schemes,  as  though  the  regulative 
faculty  had  been  paralyzed,  leaving  the  designing 
powers  alone  in  force.  Nevertheless,  Filippo  applied 
himself  to  his  task.  His  marriage  with  Beatrice 
di  Tenda,  widow  of  Facino  Cane,  brought  him  the 
nucleus  of  her  husband's  army,  but  his  own  timidity 
prevented  him  from  taking  the  field  in  person,  and  his 
father's  officers  were  now  his  enemies ;  for  each  of  them 
held  some  fragment  of  the  duchy  which  Filippo  intended 
to  recover.  He  was  in  search  of  a  general,  and,  follow- 
ing Facino's  death-bed  advice,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  a  rising  young  officer,  Francesco  Bussone — called 
Carmagnola,  from  his  birthplace  not  far  from  Turin. 
Francesco  Bussone2  was  born  of  humble  parents, 

1  See  Candido  Decembrio,  Life  of  Visconti,  cap.  xlvi. 

2  I  shall  keep  the  spelling  Bussone  rather  than  Bussoni,  because 
the  name  appears  so  in  a  notarial  deed  of  1412,  preserved  in  the 
communal  archives  of  Carmagnola  (see  Battistella,  op.  cit.  doc.  i.), 
and  because  it  is  so  given  in  an  inscription  on  the  fa£ade  of  the  church 
of  S.  Agostino  at  Carmagnola. 

VOL.    I.  II 


i62  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

probably  between  the  years  1380  and  I385.1  His 
father  is  said  to  have  been  a  swine-herd,2  and  Fran- 
cesco followed  the  paternal  calling.  He  seems  to  have 
been  a  robust  and  hardy  lad — "  era  di  corpo  bellissimo," 
says  a  chronicler — and  he  attracted  the  notice  of  one 
of  Facino  Cane's  soldiers,  who  induced  him  to  go 
to  camp.  There  he  seems  to  have  found  himself  in 
his  element.  His  personal  courage,  astuteness,  and 
general  suitability  to  camp  life  soon  brought  him  to 
the  front,  and  by  1410  we  find  him  an  officer  fighting 
under  Facino  before  Casale.  And  here  we  get  a  little 
touch  which  throws  light  on  the  irritable  temper 
and  violent  language  which  characterised  Francesco 
throughout  his  career.  His  rapid  advance  seems  to 
have  created  jealousy,  and  to  some  of  his  enemies  he 
sent  the  following  reply  :  "  Poltroni,  vestras  recepimus 
diffidentie  litteras.  Et  vobis  inchachamus.  Datum 
Caxalis.  Sancti  Evasii.  Die  XIII0  Maij,  1410." 3 

It  is  doubtful  when  Carmagnola  first  came  under 
the  notice  of  Filippo  Maria  Visconti.  There  is  a  story 
that  Visconti  owed  his  life  to  timely  warning  of  a  plot 
hatched  by  Facino;  and  that  Carmagnola,  then  a  simple 
soldier  in  Facino's  service,  was  the  instrument.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  the  decisive  moment  for  Carmagnola 
arose  when  Facino  on  his  death-bed  advised  Filippo 
Maria  to  marry  Beatrice  and  to  appoint  Carmagnola 
his  commander-in-chief. 

There  was  much  to  recommend  Bussone  to  the 
duke's  favour.  He  was  humbly  born,  with  no 
powerful  connections  ;  poor,  and  therefore  open  to  the 
lure  of  money ;  above  all  he,  unlike  most  of  his  brother 

1  So  Battistella.  His  other  biographers  give  the  date  as  1390, 
but  the  probabilities  seem  against  it.  See  Tenivelli,  Biografia 
Ptemontese,  iii.  p.  149. 

3  Battistella  is  inclined  to  think  the  Bussone  were  small  farmers,  on 
the  strength  of  the  phrase  "spectabilis  vir,"  applied  to  Francesco's 
father  in  the  deed  of  1412.  But  we  must  remember  that  Francesco 
was  by  that  time  a  person  of  note,  and  the  lawyer  may  have  shrunk 
from  offending  him  by  stating  the  family  calling. 

1  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  7,  note  4. 


ENTERS  THE  DUKE'S  SERVICE         163 

condottiere,  held  no  part  of  Gian  Galeazzo's  dominions 
which  Filippo  Maria  had  now  resolved  to  reconquer. 
Filippo  gave  him  a  command,  though  not  the  supreme 
command,  and  Carmagnola  was  with  the  duke  when, 
on  June  16,  1412,  he  entered  Milan,  acclaimed  by 
the  people,  and  expelled  the  two  usurping  Visconti, 
Estore  and  Giancarlo,  who  retired  to  Monza.  Follow- 
ing up  this  success,  Filippo  sent  his  army  under 
Carmagnola  to  besiege  Monza.  The  town  made  a 
feeble  resistance,  but  the  castle  held  out  till  May  i, 
1413,  when  it  surrendered  on  terms.  This  was  the 
first  step  in  the  duke's  favour,  and  in  the  deed  of 
surrender  we  find  Carmagnola  styled  egregius  et 
strenuus  vir,  consciliarius  et  mareschalus  noster  dilectus.1 
From  this  moment  he  advanced  rapidly  in  the  duke's 
good  graces,  was  admitted  to  his  counsels,  and  appears 
to  have  been  called  upon  to  take  a  part  in  Filippo's 
darker  proceedings ;  at  all  events,  there  is  ground  for 
believing  that  he  had  a  hand  in  the  execution  of  the 
Duchess  Beatrice,  which  took  place  in  a  castle  between 
Milan  and  Pavia.2 

The  appearance  of  the  Emperor  Sigismund  in  Italy, 
with  the  intent  to  exact  from  the  Duke  of  Milan  the 
oath  of  allegiance  as  imperial  vicar — an  intent  in 
which  he  failed — served  to  rally  and  unite  the  various 
enemies  of  Filippo,  and  compelled  him  to  rely  more 
and  more  on  his  single  trusty  general  Carmagnola, 
who  became  the  confidant  and  the  executor  of  Filippo 
Maria's  schemes3  for  the  recovery  of  the  duchy. 
Carmagnola's  success,  whether  by  arms,  craft,  or 
bribery,  was  continuous  and  rapid.  He  concluded  a 
truce  with  Monferrat,  occupied  Oltrepo  and  Bobbio, 
turned  his  attention  to  Brescia  and  Bergamo,  then 

1  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  24. 

*  Eberardo  Windrek,  Vita  Sigismundi  Imp.,  quoted  by  Battistella, 
op.  tit.  p.  25. 

3  He  was  a  witness  to  the  deed  by  which  Visconti  renounced  his 
rights  over  Vicenza  and  Verona  in  favour  of  Venice,  and  made  a 
league  with  the  Republic  (Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  28). 


164  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

held  by  Pandolfo  Malatesta,  but  retired  on  the  con- 
clusion of  an  armistice,  and  took  Alexandria.  All 
his  operations  mark  him  as  an  active,  indefatigable, 
resourceful  commander — a  point  we  must  bear  in  mind 
when  we  come  to  discuss  his  military  operations  while 
in  Venetian  service. 

In  the  course  of  these  successes  he  had  been 
handsomely  rewarded  by  Filippo  Maria.  On  Novem- 
ber n,  1414,  he  received  the  investiture  of  Castel- 
novo  and  Caselle,  with  the  title  of  count  and  the  right 
to  bear  the  Visconti  arms  and  surname.  Later  on 
he  was  appointed  to  the  supreme  command  of  the 
ducal  troops,  was  named  First  Councillor,  and 
promised  an  alliance  by  marriage  with  the  ducal 
family,  large  revenues,  and  a  palace  in  Milan. 

But  Filippo  had  more  work  for  Carmagnola  to  carry 
out,  and  still  greater  honours  and  rewards  lay  in 
store  for  him.  The  duke  and  his  general  set  them- 
selves steadily  to  effect  the  complete  reconstruction  of 
Gian  Galeazzo's  dominions,  with  a  mixture  of  cunning, 
treachery,  and  force  which  rapidly  carried  them  to 
a  successful  issue.  The  populace  of  Milan  was  first 
cowed,  and  Filippo's  authority  firmly  based  upon 
terror  by  the  appalling  tortures  he  inflicted  on  the 
assassins  of  his  brother,  Duke  Giovanni  Maria.  Then 
the  powerful  family  of  Beccaria  was  attacked  in  its 
stronghold  of  Pavia,  and  the  head  of  the  family, 
Castellino,  taken  and  killed  (1415).  The  obvious 
intention  of  Filippo  Maria  to  treat  the  other  Signori 
of  Lombardy  in  like  fashion,  one  by  one,  drew  them 
together  for  common  safety.  The  coalition — which  in- 
cluded Gabrino  Fondulo,  lord  of  Cremona ;  Giovanni 
Vignati,  of  Lodi ;  and  the  Arcelli,  of  Piacenza — centred 
round  Pandolfo  Malatesta,  lord  of  Brescia. 

It  would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay,  which 
deals  primarily  with  the  relations  between  Carmagnola 
and  Venice,  to  follow  in  detail  the  operations  of  the 
successful  condottiere.  It  will  suffice  to  note  briefly 
the  various  steps  by  which  Carmagnola  and  the  duke 


CARMAGNOLA  AS  GENERAL  165 

attained  their  object.  The  operations  began  to  the 
north  of  Milan  by  an  assault  on  Como,  held  by  the 
Rusca  family,  in  which  Carmagnola  met  with  his  first 
and  almost  only  check  in  the  course  of  his  service  with 
the  duke.  He  was  repulsed  in  an  attempted  escalade ; 
but,  in  dread  of  further  assaults,  Rusca  ceded  the 
signory  to  Visconti  in  1416.  The  town  of  Lecco  fell 
next,  though  the  castle  held  out  till  early  in  1417. 
The  Vignati  were  then  attacked.  Giacomo,  son  of 
Giovanni,  Count  of  Lodi,  was  made  prisoner,  and 
only  restored  to  his  father  on  condition  that  the 
Vignati  acknowledged  themselves  vassals  of  the  duke. 
A  few  months  later  father  and  son  were  treacherously 
seized  and  hanged  (August,  1416).  Carmagnola's  next 
operations  were  directed  against  Trezzo,  a  strong 
castle  on  the  line  of  the  Adda,  commanding  a  passage 
into  the  Bergamasque.  The  siege  of  Trezzo  is  one 
of  Carmagnola's  more  brilliant  military  feats ;  though 
even  here  the  place  was  not  actually  stormed,  but 
surrendered  on  the  threat  that  Paolo  Colleoni,  one 
of  the  family  who  was  holding  it  for  Malatesta,  would 
be  hanged  if  it  did  not  yield  (1417).  Vercelli  was  next 
recovered  from  the  Marquis  of  Monferrat  by  treaty. 
The  Arcelli  were  attacked  in  Piacenza,  and  Gabrino 
Fondulo  in  Cremona ;  but  Malatesta  came  to  the 
assistance  of  both.  Though  the  town  of  Piacenza 
was  occupied,  the  castle  of  S.  Antonino  still  held 
out,  and  Carmagnola  had  to  content  himself  for  the 
present  with  capturing  a  number  of  small  towns  in 
the  Cremonese.  A  clever  ambuscade,  however,  pre- 
sently placed  in  his  hands  two  members  of  the  Arcelli 
family,  and  with  these  he  returned  to  Piacenza.  Re- 
peating his  tactics  so  successful  at  Trezzo,  he  threatened 
to  hang  the  two  prisoners  if  Filippo  Arcelli  refused  to 
surrender  the  castle.  He  did  refuse,  and  Carmagnola 
carried  out  his  threat.  But  in  June,  1418,  Arcelli  was 
forced  to  yield,  and  the  duke,  on  payment  of  a  large 
sum,  entered  on  possession  of  Piacenza. 
This  unbroken  series  of  successes  won  for  Car- 


166  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

magnola  the  entire  confidence  of  the  duke ;  and  his 
army  at  this  time  numbered  25,000  foot  and  4,000 
horse.  A  large  part  of  Filippo's  designs  had  already 
been  realized ;  but  there  still  remained  the  most 
important  districts  to  the  east.  Gabrino  Fondulo 
was  still  lord  in  Cremona,  and  Malatesta  still  held 
Bergamo  and  Brescia.  The  attack  was  continued 
against  Cremona  first.  But  after  sacking  a  large  part 
of  the  country,  reliefs  furnished  by  Malatesta  com- 
pelled Carmagnola  to  abandon  the  Cremonese,  and 
he  turned  his  attention  to  Bergamo.  Partly  by 
brilliant  military  operations,  partly  by  bribes,  he 
became  master  of  a  fort  called  La  Cappella,  whence 
he  bombarded  the  city,  which  fell  in  July,  1419. 
From  Bergamo  as  a  base,  he  pushed  on  into  the 
Bresciano  and  captured  a  number  of  important  posi- 
tions ;  then  turning  south  again,  he  laid  siege  to 
Cremona.  By  the  beginning  of  1420  he  had  per- 
suaded Fondulo  to  come  to  an  accord  with  the  duke, 
and  to  sell  him  Cremona  for  40,000  florins.  Brescia 
now  alone  remained,  and  in  April,  1420,  Carmagnola 
began  his  final  attack.  In  one  of  the  many  skirmishes 
of  this  campaign  Carmagnola,  whose  personal  bravery 
was  always  conspicuous,  received  an  arrow  wound  in 
the  neck.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  very  serious, 
though  it  necessitated  his  retirement  to  Milan  for  a  time; 
but  we  must  emphasize  the  fact,  however,  as  it  may 
help  to  account  for  the  ill-health  which  overtook  him 
after  he  entered  the  service  of  Venice.  Carmagnola 
was  soon  back  in  camp,  and  after  defeating,  in  a  bril- 
liant engagement  at  Montechiari,  the  reinforcements 
which  Malatesta's  brother  was  sending  to  his  aid 
under  the  command  of  Lodovico  Migliorati,  and  on 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  between  Visconti  and 
Venice  (February,  1421),  which  destroyed  Pandolfo's 
last  hopes  of  relief,  Brescia  was  surrendered  to  Filippo 
Maria  for  34,000  florins  (March  16,  142 1).1 

1  The  account  of  these  events  is  based  entirely  on  Battistella's 
admirably  lucid  and  critical  history. 


CARMAGNOLA'S  REWARDS  167 

Thus  in  the  course  of  ten  years,  by  a  combination 
of  indefatigable  energy,  military  skill,  cunning,  and 
treachery,  Carmagnola  had  restored  to  Filippo  Maria 
the  entire  duchy  of  Gian  Galeazzo — a  truly  remark- 
able performance  which  filled  the  contemporary  world 
with  astonishment  and  admiration,  and  raised  Carma- 
gnola's  military  reputation  to  the  highest  pitch.  It  is 
true  that  a  skilful  employment  of  money,  political 
astuteness,  and  treachery  had  as  much  to  do  with 
these  successes  as  military  ability;  but  the  sieges  of 
Trezzo  and  Bergamo  and  the  battle  of  Montechiari 
were  undoubtedly  brilliant  feats  of  arms,  and  the 
whole  result  justified  the  commanding  position  which 
Carmagnola  had  won.  We  must  bear  in  mind  the 
qualities  displayed  by  Carmagnola  in  the  service  of 
Milan  when  we  come  to  discuss  his  relations  with 
his  subsequent  employer,  the  Venetian  Republic. 

Nor  was  Filippo  a  laggard  in  rewarding  his  suc- 
cessful general.  When  the  coalition  of  the  Signorotti 
under  Malatesta  assumed  a  threatening  attitude  after 
the  capture  of  Pavia  and  the  slaughter  of  Castellino 
Beccaria,  the  duke  gave  effect  to  his  promise  of  a 
matrimonial  alliance  with  the  house  of  Visconti. 
Antonia  Visconti,  widow  of  Francesco  Barbavara, 
was  betrothed  to  Carmagnola,  and  he  received  the 
fief  of  Sale,  near  Castelnovo,  on  the  Scrivia,  and  the 
octroi  dues  on  wine,  bread,  and  meat  in  the  district 
of  Castelazzo.  The  marriage  with  Antonia  was, 
perhaps,  not  quite  a  spontaneous  act  on  the  part  of 
the  duke ;  it  is  possible  that  Carmagnola's  own  astute- 
ness and  cunning  had  much  to  do  with  bringing  it 
about.  It  seems  that  he  at  first  aspired  to  the  hand  of 
Margherita,  sister  of  Filippo  Arcelli,  and  induced  the 
duke  to  support  his  suit  and  to  overcome  Filippo's 
repugnance  to  such  a  mesalliance,  which  the  Arcelli 
resented  on  account  of  Carmagnola's  low  birth.  The 
Arcelli  yielded,  but  at  the  last  moment,  when  all  was 
ready  for  the  ceremony,  Filippo  Maria  took  alarm  at 
the  prospect  of  seeing  two  such  powerful  personages 


168  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

united,  broke  off  the  match  in  a  hurry,  and  gave  his 
kinswoman  Antonia  to  the  general  he  intended  to 
bind  to  his  sole  service.1  However  that  may  be,  the 
Visconti  alliance  was  an  undoubted  honour  and  advan- 
tage to  Carmagnola.  The  wedding  took  place  with 
great  splendour  on  February  14,  1417,  soon  after 
Carmagnola  had  captured  both  Trezzo  and  Lecco. 
It  brought  him  presently  the  full  citizenship  of  Milan 
and  the  right  to  be  treated  come  gli  altri  di  nostra 
agnazione  di  Visconti?  with  immunity  from  all  taxes 
and  dues.  The  duke  also  gave  him  a  palace,  called 
the  Broletto  Nuovo — a  magnificent  building,  styled 
domus  magna — which  Carmagnola  set  about  adorning 
and  improving :  works  which  he  never  finished.  His 
income  at  this  time  reached  the  high  figure  of  40,000 
gold  florins  a  year.  He  had  now  touched  his  apogee. 
Next  to  the  duke,  he  was  the  greatest  man  in 
Milan. 

But  Filippo  had,  in  all  his  generosity,  a  further 
intention  than  that  of  merely  satisfying  a  victorious 
general.  The  duke  believed  that  he  was  binding 
Carmagnola  to  his  service  by  ties  which  the  soldier's 
cupidity  would  prevent  him  from  breaking  under  any 
pressure  of  neglect  or  disgrace.  Visconti  did  not 
desire  to  see  this  captain,  whose  value  he  had  just 
learned  to  appreciate,  take  pay  from  any  other  master 
than  himself;  yet  he  was  fully  resolved  that 
Carmagnola  should  never  become  so  powerful  as 
to  be  a  serious  danger  to  his  own  authority,  or  to 
play  the  part  his  father's  generals  had  played  during 
his  own  minority.  Such  an  issue  was  not  entirely 
improbable,  for  the  rapidity  of  Carmagnola's  success 
had  won  for  him  an  Italian  reputation,  and  we  shall 
presently  see  that  in  the  mind  of  the  condottiere  there 
were  already  in  process  of  formation  ambitious  schemes 
which  extended  beyond  the  mere  service  of  the  duke, 
however  liberal  a  paymaster  he  might  be. 

1  Boselli,  Storia  Piacentina>  quoted  by  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  31. 
1  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  44. 


SWISS  CAMPAIGN  169 

Meantime,  however,  Filippo  Maria  had  other  work 
for  Carmagnola  to  perform,  and  he  was  still  to  set 
the  seal  on  his  military  fame  by  one  great  victory 
before  the  long  decline  began.  The  recovery  of 
the  duchy  was  far  from  satisfying  the  ambition 
of  Filippo  Maria.  Already  he  had  begun  looking 
westward  to  Genoa,  where  civic  disturbances  and  the 
movements  of  the  fuorusciti  seemed  to  offer  a  pretext 
for  intervention,  and  southward  towards  Florence, 
some  of  whose  possessions  in  the  Romagna  and  in 
Lucca  he  coveted.  The  duke  sent  his  forces,  first 
under  Guido  Torelli  and  then  under  the  supreme 
command  of  Carmagnola,  into  Genoese  territory. 
Genoa  resisted ;  but  after  the  defeat  of  its  galleys 
by  the  help  of  the  Aragonese  fleet,  the  city  sur- 
rendered and  was  followed  shortly  by  the  whole 
Genoese  littoral,  which  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Visconti  in  November,  1421. 

But  no  sooner  were  the  affairs  of  Genoa  settled  than 
Carmagnola's  services  were  required  to  the  north. 
Albert  von  Sax  of  Misox,  on  the  plea  of  moneys  due 
to  him  by  Gian  Galeazzo,  had  seized  Bellinzona,  while 
the  cantons  of  Uri  and  Unterwald,  profiting  by  the 
disorders  which  followed  on  Gian  Galeazzo's  death, 
had  occupied  the  Val  Levantina  and  the  Val  d'Ossola. 
Von  Sax  and  the  cantons,  with  a  view  to  their  common 
defence  against  the  Visconti,  entered  into  a  pact 
by  which  they  bound  themselves  to  mutual  support, 
while  von  Sax  gave  a  pledge  that  he  would  not  sur- 
render Bellinzona  to  the  duke  without  the  consent 
of  his  allies.  The  position  of  both  the  cantons  and 
von  Sax  was  recognized  by  investitures  granted  by 
the  Emperors  Robert  and  Sigismund.  But  von  Sax, 
in  alarm  at  Filippo  Maria's  growing  supremacy  as  a 
neighbour,  endeavoured  to  convert  Bellinzona  into 
a  Milanese  fief.  To  this  his  allies  objected,  and  to 
be  rid  of  the  difficulty  he  sold  them  Bellinzona  for 
2,400  florins.  The  duke  now  made  formal  demand  for 
the  restitution  of  the  town  on  reimbursement  of  the 


i;o  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

sum  paid  by  the  cantons.  The  cantons  refused,  and 
Filippo  resolved  on  war.  His  generals  Angelo  della 
Pergola  and  Carmagnola  between  them  recovered  first 
the  Val  d'Ossola,  then  the  town  of  Bellinzona  and  the 
Val  Levantina  almost  to  the  Gothard. 

The  men  of  Uri  and  Unterwald  marched  over  the 
passes  and  came  down  nearly  to  Arbedo  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Val  Misox,  near  Bellinzona.  They  numbered 
at  most  4,000  men,  while  Carmagnola  was  in  command 
of  at  least  12,000  foot  and  6,000  horse.  By  an  able 
ruse  and  skilful  strategy  he  succeeded  in  attacking  the 
Swiss  in  front  and  on  the  flanks.  But  the  resistance 
of  the  Swiss  pikes  was  so  formidable  that  della  Pergola 
gave  the  order  for  the  cavalry  to  dismount  and  support 
the  infantry.  After  eight  hours  of  furious  fighting  the 
Swiss  were  overwhelmed  and  routed.  The  victory 
of  Arbedo  was  the  crowning  glory  in  Carmagnola's 
military  career ;  for  there  he  worsted  the  redoubtable 
Swiss,  whose  achievements  at  Morgarten  and  Zempach 
were  still  present  in  men's  minds.  The  glory  of  the 
victory  of  Arbedo  must,  however,  be  shared  by 
Carmagnola's  brother-general,  Angelo  della  Pergola. 

And  now  we  come  to  Carmagnola's  appointment  as 
Governor  of  Genoa,  the  event  to  which  most  of  his 
historians  attribute  the  beginning  of  the  misunder- 
standings with  the  duke  which  eventually  led  to  his 
quitting  the  Milanese  service,  abandoning  his  wife,  his 
family,  his  palace,  and  his  estates,  and  entering  the 
pay  of  the  Venetian  Republic.  Hitherto  it  has  been 
supposed  that  Filippo,  having  conceived  some  suspicion 
of  Carmagnola,  or  jealous  of  his  growing  reputation 
and  authority,  made  up  his  mind  to  set  him  aside  for 
a  time  and  to  employ  some  of  the  many  other  captains 
who  were  at  his  disposal.  He  believed  that  Car- 
magnola was  too  closely  bound  to  him  by  pecuniary 
and  social  interests  to  dream  of  taking  offence.  The 
duke  did  not  desire  to  alarm  his  general,  but  merely 
to  allow  the  warmth  of  his  celebrity  to  cool.  He 
therefore  sent  him  to  govern  Genoa.  Carmagnola's 


CARMAGNOLA  AT  GENOA  171 

vanity  soon  opened  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
been  virtually  cashiered.  He  refused  to  submit.  After 
fruitless  appeals  by  letter,  he  sought  a  personal  inter- 
view, was  refused,  and,  threatening  vengeance,  he  left 
the  Milanese  territory  for  the  court  of  Savoy.  Such 
has  hitherto  been  the  story ;  but  the  patient  research 
and  criticism  of  Sig.  Battistella  places  the  matter  in 
a  new  and  truer  light,  though,  as  we  shall  presently 
see,  storm-clouds  were  already  beginning  to  gather 
over  the  head  of  the  successful  and  irritable  condottiere. 
What  really  happened  was  this.  The  Genoese  had 
applied  to  the  duke  to  appoint  Carmagnola  sole 
governor  in  place  of  the  four  commissioners  sent  from 
Milan  in  March,  1422.  After  the  victory  of  Arbedo 
Filippo  complied  with  their  request,  and  Carmagnola 
was  commissioned  in  November  of  that  year.  His 
relations  with  the  duke  appear  to  have  remained  quite 
normal  and  friendly  during  the  period  of  his  office  down 
to  October,  1424.  The  Genoese  were  content  with  his 
rule.  He  showed  some  rapacity,  perhaps,  in  demand- 
ing an  increase  in  salary,  though  he  did  not  ask  more 
than  Boucicault  had  received.  When  Filippo  desired 
the  Genoese  to  raise  a  fleet  in  order  to  allow  him  to 
assist  Johanna,  Queen  of  Naples,  against  Alfonso  of 
Aragon,  Carmagnola  successfully  carried  out  his  in- 
structions ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that 
his  pride  was  hurt  or  his  hopes  disappointed  when  the 
command  was  given  to  Guido  Torelli.  There  were, 
however,  other  reasons  why  Carmagnola  should  take 
umbrage  and  begin  to  think  that  he  was  losing  the 
duke's  confidence  and  favour.  Visconti  was  engaged 
in  operations  of  war  against  the  Florentines,  and  the 
Romagna,  and  those  operations  were  entrusted  to 
Sicco  da  Montagnana  and  Angelo  della  Pergola,  not 
to  Carmagnola,  who  was  kept  inactive  in  Genoa. 
Then,  again,  the  duke  had  sent  for  that  great  officer 
Attendolo  Sforza.  Finally,  there  was  the  disappoint- 
ment about  the  command  of  the  expedition  which  the 
duke  intended  to  send  into  Apulia.  For  this  purpose 


i;2  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Filippo  recalled  Carmagnola  from  Genoa  to  Milan 
(September,  1424).  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  on 
the  point.  "  II  Conte  Carmagnola  va  in  Puglia,"  so 
wrote  the  Died  di  Balia  from  Florence  to  their 
ambassador  in  Rome  on  August  20,  1424,  and  the 
fact  would  seem  to  prove  that  Carmagnola  had  no 
grounds  for  suspecting  that  the  duke  wished  to  shelve 
him.  But  a  change  in  the  situation  of  affairs  in  Naples, 
the  successes  of  Queen  Johanna  and  Louis  of  Anjou, 
rendered  the  expedition  unnecessary,  and  to  Carma- 
gnola's  chagrin  the  troops  were  disbanded. 

Carmagnola,  however,  seems  to  have  found  that  a 
change  had  in  fact  come  over  his  position  at  the  ducal 
court.  His  long  career  of  success  had  raised  him  many 
enemies  among  the  intimate  councillors  and  associates 
of  Filippo  Maria,  jealous  of  the  novus  homo,  and  resent- 
ful of  his  brusque  manners,  irritable  temper,  and  violent 
tongue.  Powerful  enemies  he  had,  too,  among  the 
families  of  the  many  petty  tyrants  he  had  helped  to 
overthrow.  His  master  the  duke  was  suspicious,  timid, 
open  to  impressions  from  his  immediate  surroundings. 
Carmagnola  had  been  absent  from  the  court  and  from 
the  field  for  twenty-two  months,  and  Filippo  had 
learned  that  he  was  not  his  only  general.  The  task 
of  the  courtiers  was  not  difficult. 

But  what  was  it  that  they  whispered  in  the  suspicious 
ear  of  Filippo,  and  was  there  any  truth  in  it  ?  We 
have  no  direct  evidence ;  but  we  may  admit  the 
fact  of  Filippo's  coolness,  and  Carmagnola's  subse- 
quent speech  and  action  may  give  us  some  indication 
of  what  was  in  his  mind. 

In  any  case,  after  the  disbanding  of  the  Apulian 
expedition  Carmagnola  asked  his  leave  of  the  duke, 
and  it  was  granted.  He  retired  to  the  fiefs  of  Castel- 
novo  and  Sale,  there  to  nurse  his  wrath  and  brood 
over  vengeance  against  the  court  favourites  who  had 
upset  him ;  also,  maybe,  to  hatch  those  schemes  of 
a  larger  ambition  which  had  been  lurking  in  his  mind. 
For  his  subsequent  conduct  in  Venetian  service  seems  to 


QUARREL  WITH   FILIPPO   MARIA      173 

show  that  he  had  long  dreamed  of  an  independent 
sovereignty,  that  goal  of  every  condottiere 's  ambition, 
though  we  cannot  suppose  that  either  Filippo  or  his 
courtiers  had  any  inkling  of  the  fact,  even  if  we  admit 
that  it  had  already  taken  definite  form  in  Carmagnola's 
brain.  That  such  was  the  case,  however,  seems  to  be 
proved  by  an  episode  which  presently  took  place  and 
revealed  Carmagnola's  mind,  while  it  precipitated  his 
flight  from  the  duke. 

In  October  or  November  of  1424  Brescia  sent  her 
envoys  to  Milan  to  beg  the  duke  to  lighten  her  burdens. 
The  duke  refused  to  see  them,  and  Carmagnola  being 
then  in  Milan,  the  Brescians,  who  seem  to  have  had 
a  regard  for  the  great  general,  sought  an  interview 
with  him.  The  occasion  appears  to  have  come  as  a 
relief  to  Carmagnola ;  at  any  rate,  he  spoke  his  mind 
with  a  frankness  that  is  convincing.  He  told  the 
Brescians  that  in  his  opinion  Filippo  had  lost  his 
senses,  that  all  regard  for  justice  was  dead  in  him ;  and 
he  urged  them  to  combine  with  him  to  shake  off  the 
tyrant's  yoke  as  soon  as  possible.1  With  this  startling 
proposal  the  Brescians  returned  to  their  city. 

Carmagnola's  advice  to  the  Brescians  is  at  once  a 
revelation  of  his  own  designs  and  declaration  of  war 
against  Filippo.  And  it  may  well  have  been  the  sug- 
gestion of  this  attitude  which  the  courtiers  whispered 
in  the  duke's  ear.  In  any  case,  the  situation  between 
Filippo  and  his  general  was  now  strained  to  breaking 
point.  Carmagnola  had  let  his  secret  out,  and  the 
duke  possibly  knew  it.  Filippo  was  now  on  the  alert, 
spreading  his  toils  round  his  suspected  general ; 

1  Battistella  (pp.  tit.  p.  88)  accepts  this  as  probable,  though  con- 
firmatory evidence  is  wanting.  If  it  be  true  that  Carmagnola  already 
had  the  lordship  of  Brescia  in  his  desires,  this  would  have  important 
bearings  on  his  conduct  when  in  Venetian  service,  and  Battistella 
argues  that  Brescia  was  in  fact  the  cause  of  his  treason  towards 
Venice.  But  if  Brescia  were  already  in  his  mind  before  he  entered 
Venetian  service,  then  it  seems  probable  that  the  whole  course  of  his 
service  was  tainted  with  treasonable  intention,  which  is  precisely  what 
Battistella  denies. 


174  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Carmagnola,  conscious  of  his  treasonable  intent,  was 
in  the  greatest  alarm  for  his  personal  safety.  On 
November  29,  1424,  he  took  his  resolve.  Leaving 
Sale  suddenly,  he  crossed  the  Po  and  made  probably 
for  his  native  town  of  Carmagnola,  where  he  was 
under  the  protection  of  his  "  natural  sovereign,"  the 
Marquis  of  Saluzzo.  There  he  remained  till  early  in 
1425,  considering  the  situation,  revolving  plans  of 
vengeance  on  Filippo,  and  debating  the  means  by 
which  he  might  still  carry  his  ambitious  designs  into 
effect.  Clearly  that  could  only  be  done  by  taking 
service  with  some  other  power.  He  at  first  opened 
negotiations  with  the  Marquis  of  Saluzzo,  but  the 
marquis  prudently  refused  the  offers  of  the  angry 
soldier.  He  may  have  sounded  Monferrat,  and  he 
certainly  approached  Amedeo  of  Savoy,  but  met  with 
a  cold  reception.  The  truth  is  that  none  of  these 
princes  was  strong  enough  to  face  the  lord  of  Milan, 
even  with  his  best  general  in  their  service.  These 
negotiations  of  Carmagnola's  were  the  result  of  im- 
patience and  irritation  seeking  immediate  outlet. 
With  the  cooling  of  his  passion  his  political  acumen 
soon  showed  him  the  true  quarter  where  he  should 
offer  his  services — the  Republic  of  Venice.  Venice 
was  the  only  power  in  North  Italy  capable  of  coping 
with  the  Visconti.  She  was  rich,  and  had  already 
initiated  a  policy  of  expansion  on  the  mainland  which 
must  inevitably  bring  her  into  collision  with  the 
ambitious  schemes  of  Filippo  Maria.  Having  made 
up  his  mind,  Carmagnola  set  out  from  Ivrea.  He 
dared  not  pass  through  Milanese  territory,  but  took 
the  northern  route  to  Trent  and  thence  by  Pergine, 
the  Val  Sugana,  Feltre,  and  Treviso.  Accompanied 
by  eighty  armed  attendants,  he  reached  Venice  on 
February  23,  1425. 

We  are  now  entering  on  the  last  act  in  Carma- 
gnola's career.  Apart  from  the  importance  of  the 
historical  events — the  expansion  of  Venice  on  the 
mainland,  and  the  acquisition  of  Brescia  and  Bergamo, 


ARRIVES  IN  VENICE  175 

in  which  Carmagnola  played  so  large  a  part — the  chief 
interest,  as  regards  the  study  of  this  condottiere's  career, 
centres  now  in  the  character,  motives,  ambitions,  and 
actions  of  the  three  principal  actors,  Venice,  Filippo 
Maria,  and  Carmagnola. 

The  political  conditions  of  Venice  were  such  as  to 
make  Carmagnola's  arrival  peculiarly  acceptable.  The 
republic  had  already  begun  to  take  her  place  as  a 
factor  in  Italian  politics.  She  had  lately  acquired 
a  large  territory  on  the  mainland,  and  appeared  for 
the  first  time  as  one  of  the  great  Italian  powers.  She 
found  herself  now,  however,  conterminous  with  Milan, 
and  there  were  not  wanting  politicians  who  insisted 
upon  the  danger  of  the  present  direction.  They 
pointed  out  that  aggression  on  the  mainland  was  a 
course  that  had  no  end,  and  that  it  exposed  the 
Venetians  to  that  dilemma — so  fatal  to  the  princes 
around  them — of  attacking  or  of  being  attacked  ; 
stability  and  peace  would  be  impossible.  And  the 
attitude  of  Visconti  seemed  to  confirm  these  warnings. 
The  duke,  like  his  father,  cast  his  eyes  towards  Tus- 
cany, and  would  certainly  before  long  strike  a  blow 
for  Verona,  Padua,  and  the  Lombard  plain  towards 
Venice  and  the  east.  The  question  before  the  Republic 
was,  should  she  assail  Milan  at  once,  or  hold  her 
hand  and  wait  upon  events  ?  The  doge,  Mocenigo, 
led  the  conservative  or  anti-war  party ;  and  as  long 
as  he  lived  that  party  maintained  its  policy.  But 
the  section  of  Young  Venice  was  all  eager  for  military 
enterprise  and  a  land  empire.  Their  moving  spirit 
was  Francesco  Foscari,  still  in  the  prime  of  a  vigorous 
manhood,  and  so  firmly  seated  in  the  affections  of  the 
younger  nobility  that  no  shadow  of  his  tragic  end 
could  possibly  have  crossed  his  path.  The  party  of 
war  determined  to  secure,  if  possible,  the  election 
of  their  chief  to  the  dukedom.  Mocenigo  was  fully 
aware  that  the  choice  of  his  successor  would  prove  a 
critical  point  in  the  history  of  his  country.  On  his 
death-bed  he  implored  the  Senate  and  council  to  throw 


1 76  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Foscari  aside  ;  but  in  vain.  The  elevation  of  Foscari 
to  the  dukedom  virtually  gave  an  affirmative  answer 
to  the  question  of  war  with  Milan.  The  conservative 
party  were  still,  however,  of  considerable  weight, 
and  the  Republic  was  certain  to  move  with  her 
wonted  caution ;  war  would  be  avoided  if  possible. 
The  new  doge  was  therefore  probably  not  sorry 
to  find  his  hands  strengthened  by  the  arrival  of 
Carmagnola. 

The  government  at  once  entered  into  relations  with 
him.  Andrea  Contarini  was  deputed  to  interview 
and  sound  the  great  general,  who,  playing  his  cards 
skilfully,  declared  that  he  was  ready  to  stay  or  to  go  as 
the  Republic  thought  best.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
which  the  Republic  would  think  best.  It  could  not 
afford  to  let  slip  the  opportunity  for  securing  the 
services  of  the  victor  of  Arbedo,  the  restorer  and  re- 
constructor  of  the  Milanese  duchy,  the  very  foundation 
of  Filippo  Maria's  power.  The  Senate  offered  to  engage 
him ;  the  terms,  however,  were  too  low  for  Car- 
magnola. He  formulated  and  sent  in  his  own  terms. 
They  embraced  the  following  heads  :  (i)  the  com- 
mandership-in-chief ;  (2)  permanent  contract  for  five 
hundred  lances  ;  (3)  monthly  salary  of  6,500  ducats  ; 
(4)  30,000  ducats  in  advance ;  (5)  a  long  contract ; 
(6)  absolute  jurisdiction  over  all  troops ;  (7)  prisoners 
and  their  personal  effects  property  of  the  army; 
(8)  districts,  cities,  castles,  forts  with  their  munitions 
property  of  the  Republic  ;  (9)  distinguished  prisoners 
or  traitors  to  be  consigned  to  the  Republic,  on  payment 
of  half  the  reward  offered  for  them,  as  was  customary.1 
The  Senate  refused  to  appoint  a  commander-in-chief, 
not  being  at  war ;  and  declared  that  as  to  the  loan, 
Carmagnola  did  not  need  it.  The  prisoners  must 
belong  to  the  Republic,  not  to  the  army.  After  some 
haggling,  in  course  of  which  Carmagnola  declared  that 
it  was  for  the  Republic  to  offer  him  the  title  of  com- 
mander-in-chief rather  than  for  him  to  ask  it,  the 
1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  pp.  101,  102,  103. 


IN  VENETIAN  SERVICE  177 

contract  was  signed.  Carmagnola  retired  to  Treviso 
to  await  events. 

The  duke  was  enraged  at  this  engagement  of 
Carmagnola.  He  had  already  confiscated  all  Carma- 
gnola's  property.  He  now  complained  to  the  Vene- 
tian resident  that  his  troops  were  being  seduced  by 
the  late  general  to  serve  under  Venetian  colours, 
and  he  further  endeavoured  to  poison  Carma- 
gnola at  Treviso  by  means  of  a  Milanese  Giovanni 
degli  Aliprandi,  and  Gerardo  da  Ruberia,  an  agent 
sent  from  Milan.  The  plot  was  discovered,  and  the 
accomplices  executed.  The  immediate  effect  was  to 
sweep  away  any  doubts  which  might  have  been 
lingering  in  the  minds  of  Venetian  politicians  as  to 
the  advisability  of  trusting  Carmagnola.  The  breach 
between  him  and  the  duke  was  evidently  complete. 

Filippo  had  miscalculated  the  strength  of  the  bonds 
by  which  he  believed  that  he  had  bound  Carmagnola 
to  himself.  He  had  set  cupidity  too  high,  and  allowed 
too  low  a  figure  for  vanity,  pique,  and  ambition. 
He  had  driven  his  ablest  general  into  the  arms  of 
his  foes.  But  Visconti  was  not  the  man  to  abandon 
his  efforts  to  ruin  his  enemy.  What  could  not  be 
accomplished  by  poison  might  be  brought  about  by 
the  subtler  means  of  a  skilful  manipulation  of  circum- 
stances. He  would  bide  his  time,  and  the  difficulty 
would  merely  enhance  the  sweetness  of  success. 

Events  were  clearly  marching  towards  a  war  be- 
tween Venice  and  Milan,  as  Carmagnola  had  foreseen. 
The  Florentine  question  had  now  reached  a  crisis  and 
helped  to  precipitate  matters.  Filippo  Maria,  as  we 
know,  ever  since  1423  had  been  at  war  with  Florence. 
On  July  28,  1424,  his  general  Angelo  della  Pergola 
had  inflicted  a  severe  defeat  at  Zagonara ;  and  now,  in 
October  of  1425,  Guido  Torelli  had  placed  Florence 
in  the  gravest  danger  by  his  victories  of  Anghiari  and 
Fagguiola.  Florence  appealed  to  Venice,  entreating 
her  to  form  a  league  against  the  growing  power  of  the 
Visconti,  which  was  now  a  menace  to  all  North  Italy. 
I-  \% 


i;8  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

The  question  was  a  crucial  one  for  the  Republic.  The 
acceptance  of  the  league  meant  war  with  Visconti ;  the 
doge  Foscari  and  the  war  party  were  strongly  in  its 
favour.  They  had  ready  to  their  hand  a  distinguished 
general  who  knew  intimately  both  Filippo's  resources 
and  also  the  probable  field  of  operations,  the  Bres- 
ciano,  Bergamasque,  Cremonese,  where  he  had  won 
his  laurels.  Carmagnola  was  invited  to  give  his 
opinion  in  the  Senate,  it  is  said.1 

Carmagnola  was  under  the  influence  of  a  blind 
fury  against  Filippo,  and  intent  upon  exacting  some 
revenge  for  the  slights  he  had  suffered.  He  was 
neither  cool  enough  nor,  perhaps,  sufficiently  intelli- 
gent to  read  the  situation  as  it  stood.  The  reception 
accorded  him  flattered  his  vanity,  and  induced  him  to 
believe  that  he  had  the  power  to  mould  the  action  of 
Venice.  He  did  not  see  that  the  Republic  cared 
nothing  for  his  private  wrongs,  but  intended  to  use 
him  for  her  own  purposes  if  she  were  once  convinced 
that  he  was  the  best  man  to  give  them  effect.  He 
failed  to  perceive  that  if  Venice  placed  him  at  the 
head  of  her  armies,  she  would  not  be  content  with 
such  an  injury  done  to  the  duke  as  might  appease 
Carmagnola's  personal  desire  for  vengeance;  but  rather 
that  she  would  require  from  him  nothing  short  of  the 
destruction  of  Milan — her  only  object  in  this  war  ;  and 
any  failure  to  satisfy  her  would  probably  be  fatal  to 
himself.  Venice  differed  from  the  other  Signori  whom 
he  and  his  brother  mercenaries  had  served.  She 
was  rich,  not  bankrupt ;  firmly  based,  not  shivering 
towards  destruction  at  the  slightest  shock.  Carma- 
gnola's error  was  that  he  did  not  grasp  the  distinction. 
He  could  not  hope  to  inspire  her  with  dread  ;  he 
might,  with  greater  justice,  have  mistrusted  himself 
when  face  to  face  with  her  cool  diplomacy  and  deter- 
mined purpose. 

1  "  Hanno  avuto  in  diversi  di  due  volte  gran  parlamento  .  .  .  col 
Conte  Carmignuola"  (Comm.  R.  degli  Albizzi,  Nov.  1425,  quoted 
by  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  113). 


THE  FLORENTINE  LEAGUE  179 

Carmagnola  opened  his  speech  before  the  Senate 
with  a  long  and  bitter  tirade  against  the  perfidy  of 
the  Duke  of  Milan.  Then,  coming  to  matters  of  more 
practical  moment,  he  depreciated  the  power  of  the 
duke,  and  insisted  that  the  opportunity  was  favourable 
for  an  extension  of  Venetian  territory.  His  speech 
had  considerable  weight  with  his  audience ;  and  when 
he  had  withdrawn,  Foscari  hastened  to  clinch  the 
favourable  impression.  After  dwelling  on  the  crisis 
in  Venetian  affairs  which  the  question  of  the  Floren- 
tine league  presented,  he  continued  to  enlarge  on  the 
necessity  and  the  righteousness  of  the  war,  and  con- 
cluded :  "  Carmagnola's  speech  has  laid  before  you 
the  power  and  the  resources  of  Filippo.  They  are 
not  so  great  as  rumour  has  represented  them.  Nor 
should  we  be  justified  in  looking  for  any  other  than 
a  happy  and  prosperous  conclusion  to  our  enterprise 
under  Carmagnola  as  the  captain  of  our  arms.  For 
he  is  versed  in  war ;  nor  can  all  Italy  show  his  equal 
this  day  in  bravery  and  proficiency  in  the  military  art. 
Under  such  a  general  is  offered  us,  beyond  all  doubt, 
the  certain  hope  of  extending  our  borders.  All  these 
considerations  urge  us  to  undertake  the  war  with  a 
good  courage  ;  a  war,  I  repeat,  which  is  necessary ; 
for  our  enemy  is  powerful,  neighbour  to  us,  and 
aspires  to  the  sovereignty  of  Italy.  Let  us  embark 
upon  this  war,  then,  and  avenge  our  wrongs  by 
trampling  in  the  dust  our  common  foe,  to  the  ever- 
lasting peace  of  Italy."1  Foscari  carried  his  audience 
with  him ;  on  December  3,  1425,  a  league  with 
Florence  for  ten  years  was  voted,  both  parties 
agreeing  to  take  the  field  in  the  February  of  the 
following  year.  On  the  9th  of  that  month  the  Senate 
appointed  Carmagnola  commander-in-chief,  with  a 
salary  of  1,000  ducats  of  gold  a  month,  and  further 
elected  two  provveditori  to  accompany  him  on  the 
campaign.  On  the  i$th  he  received  the  standard  of 

1  See  Cronaca  Savina,  Bib.  Marciana,  cl.  vii.  Ital.  cod.  cxxxv.  p.  259. 
Quoted  by  Romanin  (pp.  «'/.),  who  thinks  the  speech  authentic. 


i8o  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

the  Republic  with  solemn  ceremony  in  the  Basilica  di 
San  Marco. 

It  is  a  tax  upon  the  patience  to  follow  the  long- 
drawn  chronicles  of  Italian  campaigning.1  The  slow 
movement  of  the  armies,  the  result  of  the  exces- 
sive preponderance  of  the  cavalry  arm  and  the 
difficulty  of  foddering  the  horses ;  the  indifference  of 
commanders  who  had  no  desire  to  conclude  the  war  ; 
the  formal  and  technical  openings  of  the  game ;  the 
marches  and  countermarches  ;  the  avoidance  of  pitched 
battles  ;  the  lengthened  sieges, — all  form  a  wearisome 
labyrinth  through  which  to  toil.  The  interest  of 
events  lies  chiefly  in  the  curious  contrast  between  the 
cabinet  and  the  field  ;  in  the  feverish  impatience  of 
the  employers  and  the  sluggish  indifference  of  the 
employed.  The  rewards  and  bribes  held  out  by  the 
government  to  prick  their  generals  to  action  were 
accepted  and  consumed  by  the  mercenary  with 
irritating  imperturbability.  It  is  only  necessary  for 
us  to  dwell  on  Carmagnola's  campaigns  in  order  to 
mark  the  conduct  of  the  three  principal  actors  in  the 
drama,  and  to  note  the  points  which  bear  upon  the 
final  and  fatal  quarrel  with  Venice. 

The  campaign  of  1426  opened  with  the  siege  of 
Brescia.  Carmagnola  knew  the  importance  of  the 
place,  was  aware  that  there  existed  great  local  dissatis- 
faction with  Visconti's  government,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  somewhere  in  the  back  of  his  mind  the  idea 
of  Brescia  as  a  possible  principality  for  himself.  On 
March  17  the  city  was  assaulted  by  Pietro  Avogadro, 
a  local  noble,  and  the  Milanese  garrison  driven  into 
the  citadel.  Carmagnola  by  forced  marches  arrived 
on  the  2Oth,  secured  the  city,  and  laid  siege  to  the 
castle.  But  almost  immediately  afterwards  he  com- 
plained of  his  health,  declared  that  he  was  suffering 
from  fever,  and  begged  the  Senate,  after  hearing 

1  See  Sanudo,  Vita  Ducum,  ap.  Murat.  RR.  II.  SS.  xxii.  pp.  983 
et  sey.,  and  for  Carmagnola's  campaigns,  Battistella's  invaluable 
critical  summary. 


ILL-HEALTH  181 

medical  opinion,  to  allow  him  to  retire  to  the  baths  for 
a  cure.  They  did  consult  the  leading  physicians  of 
Venice  and  Padua,  and  granted  leave. 

As  this  plea  of  ill-health  recurs  again  and  again,  to 
the  growing  annoyance  of  the  Senate,  we  may  remark 
that  for  some  obscure  reason  Carmagnola's  constitution 
did  apparently  begin  to  fail  during  his  brief  residence  at 
Treviso.  Throughout  the  whole  course  of  his  service 
with  Filippo  Maria  his  extraordinary  activity  and 
energy  precluded  the  idea  of  ill-health ;  but  we  must  re- 
member that  he  had  been  wounded  in  a  skirmish  in  the 
Bresciano  in  1420,  and,  according  to  Sabellico,  he  sus- 
tained a  severe  shock  by  a  fall  from  his  horse l  when 
at  Treviso,  followed  by  an  attack  of  jaundice  which 
kept  him  invalided  for  nearly  a  month.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  that  Carmagnola's  health  was  really  impaired, 
and  that  may  in  part  account  for  the  striking  difference 
between  his  activity  in  the  duke's  service  and  his 
torpor  when  in  command  of  Venetian  troops.  But 
the  Senate  as  yet  entertained  no  doubts  as  to  the 
efficiency  of  their  commander-in-chief.  Carmagnola 
seems  to  have  been  a  full-blooded,  thickset,  corpulent 
man.  There  is  a  portrait  of  him  in  the  gallery  which 
connects  the  Uffizii  and  the  Pitti.  It  forms  part  of 
a  series  of  likenesses  of  distinguished  generals,  and 
is  certainly  apocryphal,  though  it  agrees  in  many 
points  with  the  description  of  Carmagnola  left  us  by 
Andrea  Morosini.  This  Florentine  portrait  shows  us 
Carmagnola  in  the  uniform  of  captain-general  of 
St.  Mark.  The  face  is  heavy,  with  large  flabby  cheeks, 
coarse,  thick  lips,  and  eyes  with  a  leer  of  cunning  in 
them.  The  head  is  set  on  a  short  and  massive  neck. 
The  countenance  lacks  distinction.  Morosini  thus 
describes  him  from  a  portrait  extant  then  :  "  Ut,  ex 
illius  effigie  quae  adhue  extat,  facile  dignoscitur,  tetrici 

1  "  Pervigli  assiduaque  jactatione  nervorum  debilitas,  quam,  quum 
Tarvisii  esset  praecipiti  equo  devolutus  contraxerat,  vehementer 
recruduit,  atque  ob  id  ipsum  in  Patavini  agri  balnea  concedere  coactus 
est"  (quoted  by  Romanin,  op.  cit.  iv.  n6). 


i82  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

oris,  torvi  oculi,  ingrati  propemodum  adspectus  fuit 
quae  praeferscem  animum,  conbumax  ingenium  prse 
se  ferebant."  On  Carmagnola's  return  to  Venice 
after  his  cure  the  Senate  began  that  long  series  of 
promises  and  allurements  by  which  they  hoped  to 
stimulate  his  action.  They  were  practically  aware  of 
the  position  in  which  they  had  placed  themselves  by 
employing  a  captain  of  adventure  ;  they  expected 
hints  to  administer  a  douceur;  nor  were  they  unwilling 
to  obey  such  calls  within  reasonable  limits.  Brescia 
city  was  in  their  hands,  and  they  hoped  for  the  fall 
of  the  castle.  On  May  7  they  elected  Carmagnola  a 
noble  of  Venice,  with  descent  to  his  children  and  heirs 
lawfully  begotten,  and  on  the  nth  they  promised  him 
a  "  nidus,"  either  on  this  or  the  other  side  of  the  Adda, 
where  he  could  dwell  in  honourable  state,  and  all  "  ut 
ferventius  animetur  ad  omnia  concernentia  commodum 
honorem  et  statum  nostrum." l 

Thus  rewarded,  Carmagnola  returned  to  Brescia, 
where  he  resumed  the  supreme  command  in  May,  and 
now  began  those  communications  between  Filippo 
Maria  and  Carmagnola  which,  unsuspected  at  first, 
ended  by  rousing  suspicion  in  the  Senate,  and  materially 
contributed  to  the  condottiere's  disgrace  and  death.  From 
the  very  outset  it  seems  that  Visconti  opened  relations 
with  Carmagnola,  by  means  of  messengers,  agents, 
released  prisoners  sent  into  the  Venetian  camp.  In 
these  early  days  the  most  prominent  of  these  emis- 
saries was  a  certain  Valfenario.  By  their  means 
Filippo  informed  Carmagnola  that  he  desired  to 
employ  him  in  negotiating  for  peace  with  Venice.  It 
is  difficult  to  imagine  what  other  object  Filippo  had 
in  view,  save  that  of  sowing  diffidence  between  the 
Venetian  Senate  and  their  general.2  His  messages  to 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit,  vols.  xviii.  and  xix.     I  do  not  know  whether 
ut  ferventius  animetur  implies  that  they  thought  he  was  not  fervent 
enough  at  present. 

2  Sig.  Battistella,  who  is  undoubtedly  the  highest  authority  on  the 
subject,  will  not  accept  this  hypothesis,  and  refuses  to  find  the  germs 


CAPTURE  OF  BRESCIA  183 

Carmagnola  are  continuous  throughout  all  three 
campaigns,  yet  he  did  not  really  desire  peace ;  he 
himself  informed  the  Emperor  Sigismund  later  on 
(July,  1427)  that  all  these  negotiations  for  peace 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Carmagnola  were  merely 
ruses.  Whether  he  deliberately  intended  to  ruin 
Carmagnola  by  this  subtle  and  novel  means,  the  end 
was  the  same  and  was  so  advantageous  for  him  that 
we  cannot  help  believing  that  his  cunning  and  fertile 
brain  both  intended  and  foresaw  it.  However  that 
may  be,  Carmagnola  was  perfectly  frank  with  his 
employers.  He  informed  the  Senate,  who  replied  at 
first  (May  29)  that  though  they  placed  little  reliance  on 
the  duke's  word,  they  were  content  that  Carmagnola 
should  sound  the  ground  and  report ;  advising  him  at 
the  same  time  to  beware  of  attempted  assassination. 
But  as  time  went  on  and  the  duke's  emissaries  continued 
to  haunt  the  camp,  we  shall  see  that  the  tone  of  the 
Senate's  messages  gradually  changes,  passing  through 
the  stages  of  surprise  and  annoyance  to  positive  orders, 
and  finally  reaching  suspicion.  Even  on  June  8  they 
recommend  that  Valfenario  should  be  removed  from 
the  camp,  as  he  was  there  to  spy,  more  probably,  than 
to  negotiate  for  peace ;  and  on  July  17  they  instruct 
Carmagnola  to  refuse  him  a  safe-conduct  unless  he 
comes  with  well-defined  proposals. 

The  siege  of  the  forts  and  castle  of  Brescia  continued 
during  the  summer  months,  chiefly  under  the  direction 
of  the  engineer  officer  Tolentino,  who  was  not  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  commander-in-chief  on  account 
of  his  intolerable  insolence  of  tongue.1  But  Car- 
magnola began  again  to  complain  of  his  health,  and 
through  the  provveditori  Malipiero  he  expressed  a  wish 
to  go  once  more  to  the  baths.  On  September  1 1  the 

of   Carmagnola's   final   crime   in   these   early  days  of  his  Venetian 
service,  though  he  offers  no  explanation  of  what  must  surely  have 
been  an  unusual  procedure.     There  is  no  proof  beyond  the  course  of 
events,  but  that  is  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis. 
1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  128. 


184  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Senate  instructed  Malipiero  to  endeavour  to  dissuade 
him,  on  the  ground  that  his  presence  was  essential  in 
camp.  Carmagnola  consented  to  remain ;  but  by  the 
beginning  of  October  he  declared,  through  Malipiero, 
that  he  was  unable  to  attend  to  his  duties,  and  begged 
for  twenty  days'  leave,  which  was  granted.  He  left 
Venice  again  for  the  camp  on  November  19,  and  on 
the  2Oth,  before  he  had  time  to  reach  Brescia,  the  castle 
surrendered,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  ability  and  vigour  of 
Gonzaga,  who  had  taken  over  the  supreme  command. 

The  fact  that  Amedeo  of  Savoy  had  at  last  declared 
war  on  Milan  and  compelled  Visconti  to  divide 
his  forces,  coupled  with  the  desperate  condition  of 
Brescia,  induced  Filippo  Maria  to  seek  for  peace  in 
earnest;  and  when  he  is  in  earnest  it  is  not  Carmagnola 
whom  he  chooses  as  his  plenipotentiary,  but  a  com- 
mission among  whom  we  find  Corvini,  one  of  the 
courtiers  who  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in  poisoning 
the  mind  of  the  duke  against  his  late  general J — a  fact 
which  goes  to  corroborate  the  view  that  Filippo,  when 
in  communication  with  Carmagnola  in  camp,  was  not 
seriously  seeking  to  open  peace  negotiations  through 
him,  but  merely  attempting  to  waken  diffidence  in  the 
mind  of  Venice.2  The  pope,  too,  was  anxious  to  prevent 
the  lowering  of  Visconti's  prestige.  He  had  just  re- 
ceived from  Filippo,  Forli,  Imola,  and  other  places  in 
the  Romagna.  He  accordingly  sent  Niccolo  Albergati, 
Cardinal  of  Santa  Croce,  to  Venice.  Negotiations  for 
a  peace  were  introduced. 

The  terms  demanded  by  Venice  included  the  sur- 
render of  Brescia  and  the  Bresciano  and,  more  impor- 
tant for  our  present  purpose,  the  consignment  within 
fifteen  days  of  Carmagnola's  wife,  children,  and 
property.  In  spite  of  some  difficulties  peace  was 
concluded  at  San  Giorgio  Maggiore  on  December  30, 
1426.  The  duke,  after  many  delays  and  with  great 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  pp.  76,  77. 

*  But  if  not,  what  other  interpretation  will  his  action  bear  than  the 
one  we  have  suggested? 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  VENICE  185 

reluctance,  did  fulfil  the  terms  of  the  peace  as  far  as 
Carmagnola  was  concerned,  and  on  January  14,  1427, 
he  surrendered  the  wife  and  children  of  the  general 
to  the  Cardinal  of  Santa  Croce. 

By  the  peace  of  San  Giorgio  Venice  had  ac- 
quired the  Bresciano,  and  she  had  insisted  that  the 
clauses  regarding  Carmagnola  should  stand  as  an 
integral  and  vital  part  of  the  treaty.  Her  object 
clearly  was  to  sever  all  connection  between  him  and 
the  duke.  She  succeeded  as  far  as  wife,  children,  and 
personalty  were  concerned,  but  the  fiefs  and  estates 
were  still  in  the  power  of  the  duke,  and  the  person 
whom  Carmagnola  appointed  to  manage  them  as 
factor  on  his  behalf  was  none  other  than  one  of 
Filippo's  own  officials,  a  certain  Cristoforo  Ghilino, 
treasurer  to  the  duke,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  more 
as  an  intermediary  between  the  two.  But  Venice  had 
made  two  serious  discoveries  in  the  course  of  this 
first  campaign  :  first,  that  her  general,  owing  to  ill- 
health,  was  not  as  efficient  as  he  had  been  when  in  the 
service  of  Visconti ;  and,  secondly,  that  Filippo  insisted 
on  keeping  open  communications  direct  with  Carma- 
gnola; and  though  their  general  acted  towards  them 
with  perfect  frankness,  and  they  at  least  professed1 
unlimited  confidence  in  his  ability  and  loyalty,  still  the 
situation  was  irregular,  and  moreover — though  it  may 
not  have  occurred  to  them  then — they  could  not  tell 
what  answers  Carmagnola  was  all  this  time  really 
sending  to  the  duke.  The  reiterated  expressions  of 
confidence  officially  conveyed  by  the  Senate  to  Carma- 
gnola can  quite  well  be  accounted  for  by  their  fear  of 
offending  him — "  per  tema  ch'  esso  non  ne  sdegnasse  " — 
which,  as  they  themselves  admit,  would  be  highly  pre- 
judicial, "allo  stato  che  era  intieramente  nelle  mani  di 
lui " ;  and  by  their  dread  lest  he  should  suddenly  leave 

1  Note,  however,  the  phrase  of  the  Council  of  Ten  just  before  the 
trial  of  the  count,  "dissimulavimus."  See  Cibrario,  "La  Morte  del 
C.  Carmagnola,"  in  Opuscoli  Storici  e  Letterarii  (Milano,  Visaj  : 
1835),  Documents,  p.  63. 


186  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

their  service,  as  he  had  left  the  duke's,  carrying  with 
him  his  knowledge  of  their  resources  and  their  designs. 
In  the  following  campaign  they  were  to  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  a  third  cause  for  annoyance,  alarm, 
and  finally  suspicion,  the  inexplicable  inactivity  of 
their  general. 

But  Filippo  never  intended  the  peace  to  be  perma- 
nent; he  was  merely  temporizing  under  pressure  of 
events.  Even  while  in  the  process  of  negotiating,  he 
begged  the  Emperor  to  descend  upon  Italy  and  to 
attack  Venice,  in  which  case  he  pledged  himself  to 
take  up  arms  at  once,  even  if  the  treaty  were  already 
signed,  on  the  plea  that  it  had  been  wrung  from  him 
by  necessity  and  against  his  will.  In  this  spirit  he 
threw  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  Venetian  commis- 
sioners sent  to  take  over  the  Bresciano,  and  Venice 
soon  found  herself  compelled  to  request  Carmagnola 
to  prepare  for  a  renewal  of  hostilities  which  was 
clearly  imminent. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  peace  of  San  Giorgio 
Carmagnola  had  taken  up  his  residence  in  Brescia, 
which  was  powerfully  garrisoned,  and  to  Brescia,  with 
the  consent  of  the  Senate,  he  had  brought  his  wife  and 
children.  But  on  March  2,  1427,  when  war  was  on  the 
point  of  breaking  out,  Carmagnola  formally  asked  leave 
to  retire  to  the  baths  of  Abano.  The  Senate,  probably 
on  the  strength  of  medical  certificates,  consented.  By 
the  time  his  cure  of  twenty  days  was  completed,  the 
war  had  begun. 

The  campaign  opened  with  an  attack  on  Casal- 
maggiore  by  the  duke's  fleet  on  the  Po,  supported  on 
land  by  Angelo  della  Pergola  and  Piccinino.  Fantino 
Pisani  held  the  place  for  Venice.  The  Senate  repeatedly 
urged  Carmagnola  to  take  the  field — which  he  had  not 
done  even  by  the  end  of  April — and  to  succour  Casal- 
maggiore.  The  commander-in-chief  wrote  to  Venice 
excusing  his  delay  on  the  ground  that  forage  was 
lacking ;  to  which  the  Senate  replied  that  spring  was 
in  and  the  grass  growing  daily;  that  he  ought  to 


THE  SECOND  CAMPAIGN  187 

relieve  Casalmaggiore,  as  its  capture  would  be  a  great 
encouragement  to  the  foe ;  and  they  concluded  with  the 
formula  which  they  adopted  during  their  early  dealings 
with  Carmagnola— namely,  that  they  merely  expressed 
their  hopes  and  wishes,  but  left  the  conduct  of  the  war 
to  him  with  a  perfectly  free  hand.  Pisani  meanwhile 
from  inside  the  besieged  city  sent  to  beg  aid  from 
Carmagnola;  but  he  did  not  move,  though  he  was 
quite  close,  and  had  at  his  disposal  16,000  horse  and 
6,000  foot,  and  thus  Casalmaggiore  fell.1 

Whatever  they  may  have  thought — and  we  do  not 
know  that  they  thought  other  than  they  wrote — the 
Senate  made  no  reproaches  for  the  loss  of  Casalmag- 
giore. They  informed  the  general  that  they  were 
attending  with  all  zeal  to  his  demand  for  biscuits 
and  money,  and  once  again  urged  him  to  take 
the  field.  They  were  cheered  by  Contarini's  and 
Bembo's  signal  victory  over  Pasino  Eustacchio  and 
the  duke's  fleet  on  the  Po,  which  led  to  the  recovery 
of  Casalmaggiore  on  July  5. 

Meantime  Carmagnola  had  at  length  taken  the  field, 
and,  in  spite  of  a  defeat  at  Gottolengo,  the  result  of 
his  over-confidence,  he  proceeded  to  sweep  the  Bres- 
ciano,  crossed  the  Oglio  into  the  Cremonese,  and 
proposed  to  cross  the  Adda.  The  Senate  wrote  to 
him  in  terms  of  warm  approval,  and  begged  him  to 
keep  them  informed  of  his  needs.  They  suggested 
that  it  might  be  wiser  to  take  Pizzighettone  before 
crossing  the  Adda,  so  as  to  secure  a  free  passage,  but 
left  the  decision  to  his  judgment,  merely  adding  that, 
for  the  honour  of  the  state  and  the  safety  of  the 

1  Battistella,  op.  tit.  p.  154,  "Giacche  era  tanto  vicino";  p.  155, 
"  Carmagnola,  il  quale,  o  non  potesse,  o  indugiasse  troppo."  Sig. 
Battistella  will  not  hear  of  "  guilt,"  though  he  admits  "  soverchia 
lentezza,"  which  in  a  general  has  been  held  to  amount  to  "guilt." 
He  pleads,  as  extenuating  circumstance,  that  Carmagnola  pro- 
bably had  not  his  whole  army  in  perfect  order.  But  the  Senate 
had  already  pointed  out  that  his  forces  were  sufficient  to  relieve 
Casalmaggiore — an  operation  which  they  had  much  at  heart. 


i88  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

places  already  taken,  he  was  not  to  retire  into  the 
Bresciano.1 

Carmagnola  was  now  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  22,000 
horse  and  14,000  foot — "Quo  maggior  memoria  mea 
exercitus  in  Italia  non  erat  visus  " ; 2  the  duke's  troops 
numbered  about  the  same.  But  Carmagnola  neither 
crossed  the  Adda,  as  he  himself  proposed,  nor  attacked 
Pizzighettone,  as  the  Senate  wished.  He  cantoned  his 
army  in  a  camp  protected  by  a  laager  of  waggons. 
Filippo  was  seriously  alarmed  for  the  safety  of 
Cremona,  and  in  June  he  appeared  in  that  city  in 
person  to  animate  his  generals  della  Pergola,  Torelli, 
and  Sforza.  Under  this  stimulus  they  attacked  Car- 
magnola's  camp  on  July  12,  forced  the  laager,  and 
penetrated  to  the  interior;  but  the  troops  of  the 
league,  when  they  had  recovered  from  the  shock, 
delivered  a  counter-attack  and  drove  the  enemy 
back  to  the  gates  of  Cremona,  which  might  have 
been  stormed  had  not  Carmagnola  sounded  the 
retreat.  Whether  he  was  justified  or  not  from  the 
military  point  of  view  we  cannot  say.  The  league 
lost  the  opportunity  of  seizing  the  city ;  but  the  Senate 
made  no  comment,  as  far  as  we  know.  The  action 
near  Cremona  was  followed  by  another  fierce  though 
indecisive  engagement  before  Pizzighettone  on  July  30. 
Early  in  August,  for  reasons  unexplained,  but  clearly 
in  disobedience  to  the  express  wish  of  the  Senate,3 
Carmagnola  retired  to  Pralboino  in  the  Bresciano, 
just  across  the  Quetta.  It  would  seem  that  the  Senate 
resented  this  action,  and  proposed  to  write  to  their 
general  in  that  sense,  but  finally  resolved  to  wait, 
in  the  hope  that  Carmagnola  would  still  give  them 
proof  of  his  ability  and  justify  their  confidence  and 
reward  their  patience.  Again  this  looks  very  much 
as  if  the  Senate  were  afraid  of  their  general,  and 

1  Battistella,  op,  cit.  p.  162,  July  2. 

a  Fazio,  De  viris  illust,  p.  63,  quoted  by  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  162, 
note  2. 

3  See  letter  of  July  2. 


VENICE   DISSATISFIED  189 

dared  not  speak  their  mind,  lest  he  should  suddenly 
leave  their  service  as  he  had  left  the  duke's.  But 
their  displeasure  was  heightened  when  news  reached 
them  from  the  camp  that,  although  it  was  only  early 
September,  and  hardly  anything  of  note  had  been 
achieved  as  yet,  Carmagnola  was  actually  talking  of 
going  into  winter  quarters.  The  Senate  at  once 
ordered  the  proweditori  to  say  that  they  felt  both 
surprise  and  pain  at  such  a  proposal ;  the  enemy  had 
kept  the  field  the  preceding  year  till  the  end  of 
November,  and  the  like  was  now  expected  from 
Carmagnola.  Hitherto  his  retreat  into  the  Bresciano 
had  merely  given  the  enemy  an  opportunity  for  con- 
centrating ;  moreover,  they  were  sorry  to  add  that 
disparaging  criticism  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  war  had 
reached  their  ears.  As  to  the  liberation  of  prisoners, 
they  objected  to  it  as  long  as  the  duke  continued  to 
keep  Venetian  prisoners.  On  September  7  the  Senate 
despatched  Jacopo  Barbarigo  with  a  still  sharper 
message :  if  the  general  could  not  undo  the  past,  he 
must  take  care  not  to  lose  more  time.  It  is  clear  that 
there  is  a  serious  change  of  tone.  The  Senate  is 
annoyed  and  disappointed  and  on  the  way  to  growing 
angry,  and  they  had  good  cause.  For  in  August  Amedeo 
of  Savoy  had  declared  war  on  Milan,  and  Filippo  Maria 
found  himself  attacked  on  the  west,  yet  Carmagnola, 
lying  idle  on  his  eastern  borders,  took  no  advantage 
of  the  favourable  opportunity.  Indeed,  during  this 
whole  campaign  Filippo  had  been  pursuing  his  policy 
of  keeping  up  communications  with  the  enemy's  general. 
His  emissaries  were  constantly  in  the  Venetian  camp. 
On  July  3  Carmagnola  informed  the  Senate  that  a 
certain  Paolo  della  Melara,  a  soldier  of  the  league  who 
had  been  made  prisoner  by  the  duke,  had  reached  his 
quarters,  with  a  letter,  which  he  enclosed.  The  Senate 
replied  that  he  should  send  Melara  back  to  Filippo 
to  say  that  his  proposals  were  unacceptable,  and  that 
if  he  had  anything  reasonable  to  suggest,  he  should 
send  it  through  Carmagnola,  who  would  report  home. 


190  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

They  warned  their  commander  to  beware  of  attempts 
at  assassination.  Filippo  was  certainly  not  in  earnest. 
Whether  he  was  deliberately  endeavouring  to  sow  the 
seeds  of  suspicion  against  Carmagnola  in  the  minds 
of  the  Senate,  his  action  could  hardly  fail  of  that  effect. 
In  any  case,  rumours  reached  Carmagnola's  ears  that 
the  government  was  dissatisfied.  He  professed  indig- 
nation. The  government  at  once  sent  Andrea  Moro- 
sini  to  pacify  him  and  to  say  that  in  a  free  state  such 
as  Venice  men's  tongues  would  wag,  but  that  the 
general  should  only  give  heed  to  what  the  government 
itself  said  to  him.  They  renewed  to  him  their  pro- 
testations of  confidence  and  satisfaction  with  his 
operations.  At  the  same  time  they  sent  a  private 
reprimand  to  the  provveditori,  who  apparently  had 
been  criticising  Carmagnola,  pointing  out  how 
dangerous  it  was  to  offend  the  general  who  held  the 
safety  of  the  state  entirely  in  his  hands,  and  ordering 
them  to  abstain  from  all  comments,  even  if  justified l — 

1  Senate  Secreta,  Deliberazioni,  reg.  x.  fol.  91,  Oct.  6,  1427. 

COMMISSION  TO  ANDREA  MOROSINI 

"  Volumus  quod  dicas  illis  nostris  provisoribus  Brixie  inter  te 

et  eos  quod  ad  notitiam  nostram  devenit  quod  ipsi  ambo  seu 

alter  eorum  in  publico  et  aliter  dixeruntet  locuti  sunt  aliqua  in 

onus  et  dedecus  Magnifici  Capitani  Generalis  cui  talia  reportata 

sunt  de  quibus  habuit  et  habet  cordialissimam  displicentiam  et 

gravem  molestiam  in  animo  suo,  et  si  sic  est  valde  miramur  et 

gravamur  de  eis  qui  sunt  sapientissimi  et  cognoscunt  et  intelligunt 

quid  important  talia  verba  et  oblocutiones  et  quantum  possent 

esse  nocive  et  periculose  factis  nostris  habente  ipso  Magnifico 

Gapitano  Generali  statum  nostrum  in  manibus  et  ideo  eis  strictis- 

sime  mandamus  quatenus  (?)  se  abstineant  a  talibus  et  habeant 

bonam  advertentiam  et  considerationem  ad  non   proferendum 

aliqua  verba  que  aliquo  modo  possint  esse  contra  honorem  prefati 

Magnifici  Capitani  Generalis  qui  etiam  si  vera  forent  non  deberent 

dici  propter  respectus  et  causas  supra  scriptas. 

I  quote  the  passage  in  full,  as  Sig.  Battistella  only  refers  to  it.     The 

words  etiam  si  vera  forent,  coupled  with  the  remark  non  deberent  dici 

propter  respectus  et  causas  suprascriptas — that  is,  the  dread  of  alarming 

the   general  who  has  statum  nostrum  in  manibus — seem  to  me  to 

indicate  both  suspicion  and  fear  ;  at  least  they  are  hardly  compatible 

with  an  attitude  of  perfect  trust  and  confidence. 


MACLODIO  191 

a  significant  phrase  indicating  the  presence  of  a 
suspicion  which  had  to  be  suppressed  for  fear  of 
alienating  the  general. 

Carmagnola  had  meantime  been  explaining  to  the 
Senate  that  he  could  not  keep  his  companies  from 
slipping  into  winter  quarters — many  of  them  had  been 
accustomed  to  do  so  under  King  Ladislas  even  in  the 
month  of  August ;  besides,  he  had  not  money  enough 
to  pay  them.  The  Senate  told  Morosini  to  insist  on 
the  recall  of  troops  from  quarters,  and  to  say  that  the 
precedent  of  Ladislas  did  not  affect  them ;  they  were 
thinking  of  the  duke's  forces,  which  were  still  in  the 
field  in  full  strength.  For  pay  they  sent  32,000  ducats. 

At  last  Carmagnola  made  up  his  mind  to  act  with 
some  vigour.  The  fall  of  Montechiari,  which  he  had 
been  besieging,  set  him  free,  and  he  moved  at  once 
against  the  duke's  forces  under  Carlo  Malatesta  at 
Maclodio.  On  October  12  he  won  a  great  victory 
entirely  by  superior  generalship.  The  enemy  was 
vigorously  pursued  till  two  hours  after  sundown. 
Between  six  and  eight  thousand  prisoners  fell  into 
his  hands  and  the  ducal  forces  were  crumpled  up.1 

There  were  great  rejoicings  in  Venice,  and  the 
republic  at  once  gave  their  victorious  general  the 
palace  of  Pandolfo  Malatesta  at  San  Stae  and  the 
fief  of  Castenedolo  in  the  Bresciano,  worth  500  ducats 
a  year.  The  Senate  admit  that  the  reward  was  small, 
but  promised  larger  recompense  if,  thanks  to  his 
action,  their  affairs  continued  to  prosper.  And  in  fact 
the  gifts  bestowed  by  the  republic  are  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  those  which  Filippo  Maria  had  showered 
on  the  condottiere,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  his  services  to 
Venice  fell  far  short  of  those  he  rendered  to  the  duke. 

1  As  to  the  famous  question  of  the  liberation  of  the  prisoners,  which 
has  always  been  alleged  as  one  of  the  Senate's  grievances  against 
Carmagnola,  the  arguments  of  Romanin  (op.  cit.  vol.  iv.  p.  125)  and 
Battistella  (pp.  cit.  pp.  192,  202)  make  it  doubtful  whether  they  were 
in  fact  liberated  by  Carmagnola.  Any  way,  there  is  no  word  of  blame 
in  the  Venetian  documents. 


192  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Venice  expected  much  from  the  victory  of  Maclodio. 
To  her  it  seemed  that  the  road  now  lay  open  to  Milan 
and  the  Milanese,  the  cor  et  caput  of  Visconti  power. 
But  that  was  hardly  the  case.  The  victory,  though 
brilliant,  was  far  from  being  decisive.  Filippo,  though 
he  admits  heavy  losses  to  Sigismund,  could  still 
dispose  of  considerable  forces.  Of  his  generals  only 
Carlo  Malatesta,  the  least  competent,  had  been  taken 
prisoner ;  he  still  had  Piccinino,  Torelli,  and  Sforza. 
The  winter  too  was  coming  on,  the  country  was 
swampy  and  difficult  for  cavalry  operations.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  opinion  is  strongly  expressed  by  most 
of  the  authorities  that,  in  the  words  of  the  anonymous 
chronicle  edited  by  Porro,  "  there  was  not  the  smallest 
doubt  Filippo  could  have  been  stripped  of  all  his 
territory  then  and  there  had  Carmagnola  kept  the 
prisoners  who  were  the  flower  of  the  duke's  army. 
Nothing  could  have  saved  him  if  Carmagnola  had 
followed  up  his  victory  and  entered  Cremona.  Such 
was  the  terror  in  men's  minds  and  so  exaggerated 
was  the  fame  of  the  victory  that  the  general  could 
have  laid  siege  to  Cremona,  and  when  it  had  fallen  he 
could  have  camped  under  Milan." 

But  Venice  was  doomed  to  disappointment.  Instead 
of  striking  at  Milan,  Carmagnola,  who  possibly  did 
not  wish  to  see  the  duke  reduced  to  desperate  straits,1 
confined  himself  to  some  unimportant  operations  in 
the  Bresciano,  and  presently  had  to  inform  the  Senate 
that  his  captains  were  going  into  winter  quarters  of 
themselves.  After  various  letters  of  protestthe  advanced 
period  of  the  season  brought  operations  to  a  close. 

Meantime  negotiations  for  peace  had  been  re- 
opened, again  through  the  good  offices  of  Cardinal  of 
Santa  Croce.  After  some  delay  the  plenipotentiaries 
met  at  Ferrara,  and  while  the  congress  was  sitting, 
Filippo  again  employed  Valfenario  as  a  means  for 
communicating  with  Carmagnola,  and,  as  usual,  the 

1  Animirato  "  increscendoli  e  avendo  compassione,  second  mi  va  per 
deUa  mise.ria,  del  duca,"  quoted  by  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  206, 


PEACE  OF  FERRARA  193 

general  informed  the  Senate  and  received  the  stereo- 
typed reply  that  Filippo  was  merely  trifling  with  him. 
Negotiations  were  still  proceeding  slowly  and  with 
difficulty  at  Ferrara,  when  Carmagnola  applied  for 
leave  to  go  to  the  baths.  This  was  granted.  On  his  way 
through  Venice  he  was  received  with  every  mark  of 
honour  and  esteem. 

In  the  congress  at  Ferrara,  as  far  as  Carmagnola  was 
concerned,  the  chief  point  lay  in  the  Venetian  demand 
that  he  should  be  allowed  to  retain  his  Milanese  fiefs 
without  their  feudal  obligation.     This  the  duke  strenu- 
ously refused  to  grant.     Venice  clearly  aimed  at  sever- 
ing the  last  bond  between  Filippo  and  Carmagnola, 
while  the  duke  was  equally  determined  to  retain  a  hold 
over  the  great  condottiere  whom  the  shifting  fortunes  of 
mercenary  service  might  bring  to  his  side  once  again. 
Venice  insisted,  and  Filippo  at  length  gave  way  up  to 
a  certain  point :  he  consented  that  Carmagnola  should 
retain  the  title  of  Count  of  Castelnovo,  but  at  the  same 
time  should  be  personally  free  from  all  obligation  to- 
wards his  feudal  superior.     In  the  course  of  these 
negotiations  Carmagnola  had  declared  to  the  Venetian 
government  that,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  no  one 
but  the  Republic  should  be  recognized  as  superior  in 
any  dominion  held  by  him,  and  begged  them  not  to 
allow  considerations  for  his  convenience  to  hinder  the 
conclusion  of  peace.     For  this  generosity  the  Senate 
voted  him  public  thanks.    Peace  was  signed  on  April  19, 
1428.   Visconti  showed  great  reluctance  to  acknowledge 
the  personal  independence  of  Carmagnola,  but  after  a 
threat  that  war  might  be  renewed,  he  finally  gave  way. 
Visconti,   however,  never  meant  the  peace  to   be 
permanent.     On  May  30  he  again  told  the  emperor  that 
it  was  wrung  from  him  by  necessity,  implying  that  he 
felt  himself  at  liberty  to  break  it.     He  delayed  as  far  as 
possible  the  consignment  of  the  Bergamasque,  which, 
by  the  treaty  of  Ferrara,  had  become  Venetian  territory. 
But  eventually  all  the  terms  were  carried  out,  and 
Carmagnola  and  his  generals  came  to  Venice  for  the 
VOL.  i.  13 


194  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

solemn  reconsignment  of  the  standard  of  San  Marco. 
The  Senate  delayed  its  rewards  to  the  commander-in- 
chief  until  it  had,  as  it  declared,  sounded  his  wishes 
and  intentions — a  phrase  which  hardly  indicates  con- 
fidence in  Carmagnola's  future  conduct. 

The  peace  lasted  two  years,  during  which  time 
Carmagnola  was  resident  in  the  Bresciano.  With 
significant  persistence  Filippo  continued  his  corre- 
spondence directly  with  his  late  commander-in-chief,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  war  had  ceased.  He  set  himself 
to  conciliate  the  general  and  to  remove  all  cause  of 
suspicion  and  distrust.  The  count  was  relieved  of  the 
penalties  pronounced  against  him  and  was  restored 
to  the  position  he  had  held  in  the  Milanese  before  he 
fled  from  it. 

Carmagnola  kept  the  Senate  informed,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  believe  that  they  did  not  view  with 
suspicion  such  a  correspondence.  At  the  very  least 
there  was  the  obvious  danger  that  they  might  lose 
Carmagnola's  services  at  the  close  of  his  contract. 
On  January  5,  1429,  the  Council  of  Ten  declared  its 
competence  to  take  the  affairs  of  the  count  into  con- 
sideration, but  resolved  to  refer  the  matter  to  the 
Senate.  This  intervention  of  the  Ten  would  indicate 
that  the  conduct  of  the  count  was  considered  a 
question  of  public  safety. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  early  in  January,  Carmagnola 
had  asked  leave  to  surrender  his  appointment.  Taken 
in  connection  with  his  known  correspondence  with 
the  duke,  the  government  naturally  concluded  that  he 
intended  to  pass  over  into  Filippo's  service.  The 
Senate  refused,  and  after  some  insistence  on  both  sides, 
on  February  15,  1429,  a  new  contract  was  signed. 
Carmagnola  was  reappointed  commander-in-chief; 
he  was  granted  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  over 
the  forces,  except  in  places  where  a  Venetian  governor 
resided ;  his  own  condotta  of  500  lances  was  at  his 
sole  disposition;  and  his  pay  was  to  be  1,000  ducats 
a  month  for  two  years.  The  Republic  invested 


RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  195 

him  in  the  fief  of  Chiari,  worth  6,000  ducats  a 
year. 

This  new  contract  with  Venice  seems  to  have  angered 
Filippo  Maria.  It  delayed  his  hopes  of  winning  Car- 
magnola  back  to  his  service.  When  the  count  applied 
for  leave  to  go  to  the  baths  near  Siena,  the  government 
warned  him  that  they  had  it  from  a  sure  source  that 
the  duke  intended  some  mischief  against  his  person, 
and  begged  him  to  choose  Abano.  He  declined  and 
stood  by  his  original  intention,  though  his  personal 
guard  amounted  to  300  foot  and  60  horse. 

After  the  completion  of  his  cure  he  returned  to 
Chiari,  his  fief  in  the  Bresciano,  and  was  almost  im- 
mediately interviewed  by  an  agent  from  the  duke, 
Cristoforo  Ghilino,  the  duke's  inspector  of  revenues 
and  also,  it  must  be  noted,  Carmagnola's  factor  for  his 
Milanese  estates.  And  this  policy  of  sending  emissaries 
to  Carmagnola  was  kept  up  with  increasing  activity  all 
through  the  months  of  January  and  February,  1430. 
In  March  the  count  went  to  Venice  with  a  letter  from 
Visconti  in  his  pocket.  After  consultation  the  Senate 
requested  Carmagnola  to  give  the  duke  clearly  to 
understand  that  he  must  desist  from  all  further 
correspondence ;  Filippo,  of  course,  paid  no  heed. 

War  was  coming  on  again.  The  duke  continued 
to  harass  Monferrat,  and  the  Republic  now  declared 
that  she  would  consider  such  conduct  a  casus  belli. 
In  August  Carmagnola  was  summoned  to  Venice  to 
consult,  and  he  then  asked  for  a  part  of  the  Milanese 
if  it  fell  to  Venetian  arms.  The  Senate  promised  him 
any  city  he  chose  and  its  territory  except  Milan  itself, 
and  the  full  restitution  of  all  his  fiefs  in  the  Milanese ; 
and  letters  patent  were  issued  to  that  effect.  It  had  by 
this  time  become  clear  to  the  Senate  that  Carmagnola's 
ambition  was  to  create  an  independent  principality  for 
himself,  an  ambition  common  to  most  of  his  brother 
condottieri,  and  from  this  point  onwards  they  en- 
deavoured to  stimulate  him  to  action  by  increasing 
the  value  of  the  prize  they  offered. 


196  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Early  in  1431  hostilities  broke  out.  This  last  cam- 
paign of  Carmagnola  presents  the  same  features  as  its 
two  predecessors,  only  in  a  heightened  degree :  the 
same  inexplicable  inactivity  and  sluggishness;  the 
same  demand  to  close  the  campaign  in  August ; 
the  same  persistent  communications  from  the  duke ; 
the  same  official  professions  of  confidence,  coupled 
with  a  growing  discontent  in  public  opinion  and 
irritation  tending  towards  suspicion  in  the  mind  of 
the  Senate.  The  campaign  opened  with  an  attack  on 
Lodi,  in  which  Carmagnola  failed,  and  a  reverse  at 
Soncino,  where  he  allowed  himself  to  be  entrapped. 
On  May  30  the  standard  of  San  Marco  was  solemnly 
consigned  to  him  in  the  Duomo  of  Brescia,  and  he 
took  the  field  in  force. 

It  is  needless  for  us  to  follow  the  details  of  this 
campaign.  It  will  suffice  if  we  dwell  briefly  on  the 
various  points  which  were  afterwards  brought  up 
against  Carmagnola  as  proofs  of  a  treacherous 
intention. 

On  June  22,  after  a  reconnaissance,  carried  out  the 
evening  before  by  Pasino  Eustacchio  and  Giovanni 
Grimaldi,  the  duke's  admirals  on  the  Po,  Nicol6 
Trevisan,  the  Venetian  commander,  apparently  on 
the  positive  orders  of  Carmagnola,1  who  was  his 
superior  officer,2  moved  up  the  river  to  attack  the 
enemy.  The  current  was  against  him,  his  men  were 
tired  with  rowing  before  the  engagement  began ;  his 
ships  for  the  same  reason  failed  to  keep  their  stations, 
while  the  enemy,  with  a  favourable  current,  bore  down 
on  him  in  perfect  order.  His  fleet  was  gradually 
pushed  over  to  the  right  bank  of  the  stream,  the 
bank  opposite  to  that  on  which  Carmagnola's  army 
was  stationed;  the  result  was  a  crushing  defeat. 
Carmagnola's  forces  must  have  been  quite  close,  for 

1  "  Vista  la  presente  (lettera)  el  dovesse  andar  con  1'  armada  suxo." 
Orders  sent  by  Carmagnola  to  Trevisan  on  the  night  of  June  21-22, 
quoted  by  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  282. 

J  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  278. 


DEFEAT  ON   THE   PO  197 

the  din  of  battle  was  heard  in  the  camp.  Trevisan, 
when  he  found  himself  hard  pressed,  repeatedly  sent 
to  beg  for  instant  succour,  and  Paolo  Correr,  the 
provveditore  with  the  general,  "  on  hearing  the  guns 
and  seeing  the  ducal  galleons  bearing  down,  told  Car- 
magnola  that  he  ought  either  to  attack  Cremona  (by 
way  of  causing  a  diversion)  or  to  march  down  to  the 
banks  of  the  Po  to  support  the  doge's  fleet,  which 
had  come  up  the  river  on  his  orders";  and  the 
chronicler  adds,  "  Carmagnola  looked  annoyed ;  said 
he  would  take  steps ;  e  nulla  fece"  It  is  possible  that 
in  fact  he  could  not  do  anything,  owing  to  the  position 
assumed  by  the  fleets;  yet  the  impression  is  left  that  he 
wilfully  made  absolutely  no  effort  to  support  Trevisan.1 
Carmagnola  thought  it  necessary  to  write  to  Venice 
to  defend  his  conduct — the  first  time  he  ever  did  so. 
In  his  own  support  he  sent  in  copies  of  his  orders  to 
Trevisan.  The  Senate  replied  that  no  excuse  was 
called  for;  that  they  knew  where  the  blame  lay. 
And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  passed  a  heavy  sentence 
on  Trevisan — a  sentence  that  was  reduced  but  not 
quashed  after  Carmagnola's  trial. 

The  defeat  on  the  Po  upset  the  whole  plan  of 
campaign.  The  discussion  of  future  operations  led 
to  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  commander- 
in-chief  and  the  provveditore,  Correr;  the  Senate, 
when  appealed  to,  supported  the  general.  But  Car- 
magnola did  hardly  anything  of  note,3  and  presently 
the  Senate  were  amazed  by  receiving  notice  that  the 
campaign  must  close  at  the  end  of  August.  It  is  to 
be  observed  that  contemporaneously  with  this  notice 
from  Carmagnola,  Filippo  Maria  believed  himself  in  a 
position  to  withdraw  Piccinino  and  his  troops  from  the 
field  of  operations.3  On  August  14  the  Senate  replied 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  289,  is  of  opinion  that  Carmagnola's  action 
was  the  first  step  on  the  perilous  road  of  treachery. 

1  Battistella  (p.  292)  notes  the  strana  lentezza  of  the  general. 

8  Possevin,  quoted  by  Battistella  (p.  296,  note  3),  says  distinctly  that 
Filippo  counted  on  Carmagnola's  treacherous  retirement  into  quarters. 


198  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

expressing  their  "  great  displeasure,"  and  immediately 
afterwards  they  sent  two  commissioners  to  the  camp 
to  dissuade  the  general  from  abandoning  active  opera- 
tions, and  also  with  orders  to  investigate  the  reasons 
adduced  by  Carmagnola.  This  order  to  investigate, 
given  now  for  the  first  time,  is  significant,  and  indi- 
cates great  dissatisfaction  if  not  actual  suspicion. 
The  Senate  further  remarked  that  there  was  too 
marked  a  difference  between  the  activity  of  the  duke's 
generals  and  their  own.  Did  not  the  duke's  cavalry 
require  forage  as  well  as  theirs  ?  and  yet  he  kept  the 
field  till  late  in  winter. 

This  was  followed  on  September  4  by  positive 
orders — the  first  time  we  hear  of  them — that  the 
general  was  to  keep  the  field.  But  all  in  vain.  At 
the  beginning  of  October  he  cantoned  the  larger  part 
of  his  troops.  The  patience  of  Venice  was  running 
out,  and  we  are  approaching  the  crisis.  On  Octo- 
ber 9  motion  was  made  in  the  Senate  to  take  into 
consideration  the  affairs  of  the  count.  Deliberation 
was  suspended  for  a  few  days,  but  on  the  13th  it  was 
moved  "that  in  order  to  know  where  we  are,  et  non 
stare  in  his  perpetuis  laboribus  et  expensts"  on  Monday 
following  the  Senate  should  express  its  opinion  on 
the  matter.  This  was  passed,  but  was  immediately 
followed  by  a  vote  to  suspend  action  for  the  present. 
The  Senate,  possibly  in  the  absence  of  convincing 
proof  of  guilt,  resolved  to  return  yet  again  to  its  old 
policy  of  endeavouring  to  stimulate  its  general  by 
promises  of  large  rewards.  Events,  however,  were 
shortly  to  compel  them  to  abandon  this  tentative 
attitude  and  to  force  them  into  sharp  and  vigorous 
action. 

On  October  17  Cavalcabo,  one  of  Carmagnola's 
officers,  made  a  bold  attempt  to  seize  Cremona.  By 
a  well-planned  escalade  in  the  night-time  he  captured 
the  gate  and  fort  of  San  Luca.  Carmagnola  was 
only  three  miles  off,  and  though  repeatedly  asked 
to  support  Cavalcabd,  he  either  did  not  move  or 


NEGOTIATIONS  FOR  PEACE  199 

arrived  too  late,  and  the  attempt  failed.  News  reached 
Venice  that  Cremona  was  in  their  hands,  but  a  second 
despatch  dashed  the  universal  joy  and  gave  cause  for 
bitter  disappointment  and  indignation.1 

With  the  failure  to  capture  Cremona  the  inglorious 
campaign  of  1431  came  to  an  end.  Carmagnola  had 
done  nothing  save  to  rouse  anger  and  possibly  the 
suspicion  of  his  employer.  Venice  had  gained  nothing, 
in  spite  of  her  great  army  of  thirty  thousand  men  in 
the  field.  Her  purse  and  her  patience  were  alike  all 
but  exhausted. 

Meanwhile  the  duke's  emissaries  continued  to  reach 
Carmagnola  in  his  quarters  at  Brescia.  On  Novem- 
ber 3  he  informed  the  Senate  that  Daniele  da  Imola 
had  brought  him  an  offer  from  the  duke  to  name  him 
plenipotentiary  for  peace  negotiations.  Apparently 
no  notice  was  taken  of  this,  because  Carmagnola  was 
suddenly  called  on  to  undertake  the  command  of 
operations  against  the  Hungarians  in  Fruili.  The 
enemy,  however,  retired  before  his  arrival.  In  De- 
cember a  motion  was  brought  forward  to  instruct  the 
governors  of  Brescia  to  sound  Carmagnola  as  to  the 
real  objects  of  his  ambition.  The  Senate  say  that  they 
have  heard  that  he  aspired  to  the  lordship  of  Milan ; 
should  this  prove  to  be  the  case,  then  the  governors, 
in  the  name  of  the  Republic,  are  to  give  him  a  promise 
that  Milan  shall  be  his  should  he  succeed  in  taking 
it.  The  motion  was  not  carried,  and  though  it  was 
repeated  in  January,  1432,  it  met  the  same  fate.  But 
the  episode  is  important.  It  shows  us  the  Senate 
still  endeavouring  to  overcome  their  general's  inac- 
tivity by  holding  out  the  prospect  of  vast  prizes ;  it 
also  indicates  that  such  a  policy  had  ceased  to  recom- 
mend itself  to  the  majority;  and  it  throws  light  on 
Carmagnola's  private  aims  and  desires,  the  creation 
of  an  independent  principality. 

1  Battistella  (p.  308)  here  admits  a  second  case  of  treacherous  con- 
duct :  "  Egli  arrivfc  tardi  perche  tardi  voile  arrivare."  But  on  the 
point  there  is  no  documentary  evidence. 


200  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

While  matters  were  in  this  state  Carmagnola,  in 
February,  1432,  informed  the  Senate  that  Cristoforo 
Ghilino  had  sent  him  fresh  messages  from  the  duke. 
The  Senate  replied  on  the  2ist,  absolutely  forbid- 
ding him  to  answer  these  or  any  other  messages. 
Carmagnola's  only  response  was  to  tell  the  Senate  that 
Ghilino  still  insisted  on  an  interview.  The  Senate 
repeated  the  order  not  to  receive  Ghilino,  and  informed 
the  general  that  all  negotiations  for  peace  were  now 
transferred  to  plenipotentiaries  at  Ferrara.  If  we  are 
to  accept  the  statement  of  Giulio  Porro,  these  orders 
were  disobeyed.  Carmagnola  on  one  occasion  did 
receive  a  ducal  emissary  in  his  tent  by  night,  and  on 
another  occasion  he  passed  beyond  the  lines  to  confer 
with  agents  from  Filippo.1  But  worse  was  still  to 
follow.  In  striking  contrast  with  Carmagnola's  in- 
activity, the  ducal  troops  under  Piccinino  vigorously 
assumed  the  offensive,  and  in  February  easily  recovered 
Casalmaggiore,  Toricella,  Casalbutano,  and  Bordelano 
— the  last-named  is  said  to  have  surrendered  on  the 
positive  instigation  of  Carmagnola  himself.2  Moreover, 
he  deliberately  threw  away  an  opportunity  for  cap- 
turing Soncino,  a  large  part  of  whose  walls  had 
collapsed.  The  war,  in  short,  was  going  from  bad 
to  worse,  and  Venice  could  stand  it  no  longer;  she 
had  exercised  a  patience  that  no  other  state  would 
have  displayed,  but  when  this  was  exhausted,  she 
acted  rapidly  and  without  hesitation. 

On  March  27,  1432,  the  Council  of  Ten  took  the 
matter  in  hand,  and  resolved  that  in  view  of  previous 

1  Porro  says  he  read  these  facts  in  the  reports  of  the  proweditori, 
in  the  archives  at  Venice.  These  papers  cannot  now  be  found  ;  and 
Battistella  conjectures  that  Porro  is  really  referring  to  the  documents 
of  the  Senate.  Battistella  (op.  cit.  p.  334)  declares  that  it  was  not 
permissible  for  Carmagnola  to  negotiate  with  the  enemy  on  the 
subject  of  peace.  But  if  not  then,  why  earlier,  when  Battistella 
will  not  admit  guilt  or  blame  ?  The  situation  and  the  facts  are  the 
same  ;  the  Senate's  interpretation  of  them  only  had  changed  owing  to 
accumulation. 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  337. 


THE  ARREST  201 

and  recent  information,  the  governors  of  Brescia  should 
be  ordered  to  arrest  Carmagnola  immediately.1  This 
proposal,  however,  presented  dangers.  All  along  the 
government  had  been  in  dread  lest  Carmagnola  should 
leave  their  service  and  return  to  the  duke ;  this  dread 
accounts  for  the  conciliatory  tone  of  the  senatorial 
communications,  and  for  the  reiterated  expressions 
of  confidence,  which  certainly  contributed  to  blind 
Carmagnola  to  the  perils  of  his  position.  Carma- 
gnola at  Brescia  was  in  the  midst  of  his  troops, 
surrounded  by  his  personal  bodyguard  and  compara- 
tively close  to  the  duke's  territories.  There  was 
considerable  risk  that  he  might  escape.  The  matter 
was  deferred  till  the  following  day,  and  meantime  the 
usual  Giunta  (Zonta)  of  twenty  nobles  was  elected,  as 
in  cases  of  great  gravity.  It  was  further  proposed 
that  the  Senate  should  be  kept  sitting  in  perman- 
ence till  the  Ten  had  reached  a  resolution,  but 
this  was  modified  to  the  administration  of  the  oath 
of  secrecy  as  regards  the  letters  read  in  Senate  and 
as  regards  the  convocation  of  the  Ten  with  the  Zonta? 
This  shows  that  the  information  on  which  they  were 
acting  had  been  communicated  first  to  the  Senate,  and 
that  it  was  the  Senate  who  had  set  the  Ten  in  motion. 
On  March  29  the  Ten  despatched  their  secretary, 
Giovanni  de  Imperiis,  to  Brescia,  with  an  invitation 
to  Carmagnola  to  come  to  Venice  that  they  might 
consult  on  the  operations  of  the  spring;  upon  the 
doubts  and  difficulties  connected  therewith  they  en- 
large, with  a  view  to  concealing  their  real  intent.  The 
secretary  is  also  to  say  that  they  have  invited  the 
Marquis  of  Mantua  to  meet  the  general.  Carmagnola 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  339  and  doc.  xxxviii. 

*  The  documents  are  quoted  by  Cibrario,  op.  cit.  pp.  53-72.  "  Quod 
consilium  rogatorum  licentietur  sed  mandetur  omnibus  sub  pena 
haveris  et  persone  quod  teneant  secretas  litteras  in  dicto  consilio  et 
similiter  convocatum  huius  consilii  de  Decem  ac  additionem  datam 
dicto  consilio."  The  first  dicto  refers  to  the  Senate,  the  second  dicto 
to  the  Ten, 


202  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

is  begged  to  come  as  soon  as  possible.  If  Giovanni 
succeeds  in  persuading  the  count  to  set  out,  he  is  to 
accompany  him  and  advise  the  Ten  of  the  day  of 
arrival;  should  the  general,  however,  show  signs  of 
refusal,  Giovanni,  in  order  to  allay  suspicion,  is  to 
say  that  he  will  take  the  count's  views  and  forward 
them  home,  but  he  is  secretly  to  convey  orders  to 
the  governors  to  arrest  Carmagnola  and  his  wife,  and 
to  sequestrate  all  letters,  papers,  and  money,  of  which 
an  inventory  is  to  be  drawn  up.  On  his  arrival  at 
Venice  the  count  is  to  be  arrested  forthwith.  It 
was  further  resolved,  in  view  of  Carmagnola's  pos- 
sible escape  on  the  road  to  Venice,  that  all  the 
officials  along  the  route  should  be  ordered  to  seize 
him  if  he  made  the  attempt.  Letters  were  directed 
to  all  general  officers  in  Venetian  service  to  explain 
the  arrest  of  Carmagnola,  and  absolute  silence  was 
imposed  on  the  members  of  the  Ten,  they  being  for- 
bidden to  discuss  the  matter,  even  among  themselves, 
outside  the  council  chamber.  The  brief  letter  to  the 
count  himself,  begging  him  to  give  the  secretary  fidem 
plenariam  tanquam  nobis  propriis,  was  then  drafted,  and 
with  it  and  his  instructions  Giovanni  de  Imperiis  set 
out  for  Brescia.  He  seems  to  have  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  persuading  Carmagnola  to  come  to  Venice. 
On  April  6  he  set  out  apparently  with  a  perfectly  clear 
conscience;  at  least  he  showed  no  disposition  to  refuse 
or  to  escape,  as  the  Ten  had  conjectured  that  he  might. 
As  a  sign  of  the  highest  regard,  the  Governors  of 
Brescia  escorted  him  on  the  road  till  they  met 
the  escort  despatched  from  Verona,  and  so  on  from 
city  to  city  till  he  reached  the  lagoons.  Carmagnola 
took  it  all  in  good  faith  and  never  suspected  that 
he  was  really  a  prisoner.  On  the  night  of  the  6th 
he  slept  in  the  palace  of  the  Venetian  official  Federico 
Contarini.  Next  day  he  was  brought  down  the 
Brenta  to  the  lagoons,1  and  on  landing  in  Venice  he 

1  Arch,  di  Sfato,   Collegio   Notatorio,   reg.   8,   1424-39,  fol.    109, 
"  solvuntur  pro  tribus  barchis  missis  obviam  Comiti,  L  n,  soldi  16." 


THE  TRIAL  203 

was  met  by  eight  nobles,  who  at  once  conducted 
him  to  the  ducal  palace.  His  escort  was  dismissed 
while  he  went  upstairs.  Presently  he  was  told  that 
the  doge  was  indisposed,  but  would  receive  him 
the  next  day.  He  turned  and  went  downstairs ;  but 
as  he  passed  along  the  lower  arcade,  out  of  which 
the  prisons  opened,  one  of  the  gentlemen  about  him 
said,  "  This  way,  if  you  please,  my  lord  count." 
"But  that  is  not  the  way,"  replied  Carmagnola. 
"  Pardon,  it  is  the  right  way,"  and  at  that  moment 
he  was  hurried  into  prison.  As  the  door  closed  on 
him  he  exclaimed,  "  I  am  a  lost  man." 

On  the  same  day,  April  7,  after  the  arrest,  notice 
was  given  to  the  Governors  of  Brescia  and  to  Fantino 
Michiel  and  Paolo  Correr,  envoys  at  Ferrara.  These 
letters  contain  the  statement  of  the  Ten  as  to  the 
cause  of  the  arrest,  and  we  shall  deal  with  them 
when  discussing  the  nature  of  Carmagnola's  guilt. 
Further,  orders  were  sent  to  Dandolo  Garzoni, 
provveditore  at  Brescia,  to  proceed  at  once  to  Car- 
magnola's fief  of  Chiari  and  to  take  it  over  in  the 
name  of  the  Republic ;  the  oath  of  fidelity  was  to  be 
exacted  from  the  troops  under  Carmagnola's  imme- 
diate personal  command.  Both  these  orders  were 
carried  out  without  the  smallest  opposition.  Car- 
magnola's horses,  which  he  had  left  behind  in  Padua, 
were  also  sequestrated. 

On  the  8th  the  Senate,  not  the  Ten,  wrote  to 
their  envoy  at  Florence,  Ermolao  Donato,  giving 
the  reasons  for  the  action  taken  against  Carmagnola, 
the  grounds  being  that  under  his  command  "  nihil 
factum  fuit  nee  fieri  voluit  contra  inimicum,"  and 
further  "  cum  eis  intelligentiam  habuit  ducendo  sub 
simulationem  rem  in  longum  et  querendo  subvertere 
statum  nostrum  sicut  clare  detectum  est." 1 

On  the  pth  the  trial  began.  It  was  a  strictly  legal 
trial,  following  meticulously  the  prescribed  procedure 
(n/0)  of  the  Ten.  A  commission  of  eight  members 
1  Romanin,  of  cit.  iv.  p.  159,  note  I. 


204  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

was  elected  from  among  the  Ten  to  draw  up  the 
charges  against  the  count  and  to  report,  and  was 
empowered  to  use  torture  in  their  examination  of 
Carmagnola,  of  his  chancellor,  Giovanni  de  Moris,  or 
any  other  who  might  seem  to  have  had  art  or  part  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  general.  Among  those  arrested 
and  sent  to  Venice  from  Brescia  were  a  woman  known 
as  "la  Bella,"  and  the  count's  household  servants.  The 
countess  was  also  brought  to  Venice,  along  with  all 
Carmagnola's  correspondence. 

The  commission  at  once  proceeded  to  their  task. 
Carmagnola  was  examined  under  torture l  of  fire 
applied  to  his  feet,  his  injured  arm  preventing  the 
application  of  the  cord.  He  confessed  "  at  once,"  and 
his  confession  was  committed  to  writing  and  read 
over  to  him.  What  it  contained  we  do  not  know. 
The  document  has  disappeared.  On  the  nth  Holy 
Week  began,  and  the  trial  was  suspended.  It  was 
resumed  on  the  23rd,  and  to  make  up  for  lost  time  the 
commission  was  ordered  to  sit  day  and  night.  The 
count's  correspondence  was  examined.  What  was 
found  in  it  we  do  not  gather  from  official  documents  ; 
but  a  large  number  of  the  better  authorities,  including 
Sanudo,  the  anonymous  chronicle  edited  by  Porro, 
S.  Antonino,  and  others,  are  agreed  that  compromising 
letters  and  papers  were  discovered.  It  is  pretty  certain 
that  the  countess,  "la  Bella,"  the  servants,  and  an  officer 
called  Moccino  da  Lugo  were  also  heard  as  witnesses. 
We  do  not  know  precisely  what  evidence  they  gave ; 
Moccino's  must  have  been  hostile,  if  we  can  trust  the 
passage  in  Spino's  Life  of  Colleoni :  *  "  E  per  lettere  di 
sua  mano  e  pel  testimonio  de  Moccino,  rimanendo  con- 
vinto."  The  trial  was  concluded  by  May  5,  and  on 
that  day  the  commission  submitted  the  minutes  to  the 

1  Arch,  di  Stato,  Collegio  Notatorio,  loc.  cit.  "  solvuntur  magistro 
torture  qui  venit  de  padua,"  1.  2,  10. 

*  Istoria  della  vita,  di  Bartolomeo  Colleoni^  da  Pietro  Spino 
(Bergamo  :  1732),  p.  29.  Moccino  was  present  at  Cavalcab6's  surprise 
attack  on  Cremona,  and  probably  gave  evidence  on  this  point. 


THE   EXECUTION  205 

Ten  and  the  Giunta.  These  were  read,  and  then,  in 
accordance  with  the  usage  of  the  court,  the  three 
chiefs  of  the  Ten  moved  that  "  on  account  of  what  has 
just  been  read  and  said,  we  do  now  proceed  against 
Count  Francesco  called  Carmagnola,  late  our  com- 
mander-in-chief,  for  his  actions  which  were  prejudicial 
to  our  state,  and  as  a  public  traitor."  This  was 
carried  by  twenty-six  votes  against  one,  with  nine 
neutrals.  Motion  was  then  made  "  that  on  that  very 
day,  at  the  usual  hour  after  nones,  Carmagnola,  a 
traitor  to  the  state,  should  be  led,  with  a  gag  in  his 
mouth  and  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back,  to  the  midst 
of  the  two  columns  on  the  Piazza  di  San  Marco,  and 
that  there  his  head  should  be  struck  off  so  that  he  die. 
The  sentence  to  be  notified  at  once  to  the  prisoner." l 
This  was  carried  by  nineteen  votes.  The  doge, 
Foscari,  and  three  councillors  moved  that  perpetual 
imprisonment  be  substituted  for  death,  but  the  amend- 
ment was  lost.  That  same  evening  before  vespers, 
Carmagnola,  splendidly  dressed  in  scarlet  stockings, 
a  velvet  cap  alia  Carmagnola^  doublet  of  crimson  and 
cloak  of  scarlet,  was  led  to  the  place  of  execution, 
where  his  head  fell  at  the  third  blow.  His  body, 
accompanied  by  twenty-four  torches,  was  taken  first 
to  the  Church  of  San  Francesco  della  Vigna,  but 
while  the  interment  was  in  progress  the  monk  Dolfin, 
who  had  confessed  him,  came  to  say  that  the  count 
desired  to  be  buried  at  the  Frari.  Thither  the  body 
was  at  once  conveyed,  and  buried  in  the  first  cloister 
against  the  wall  of  the  church  under  the  portico.2 

1  The  same  motion  made  sufficient  provision  for  his  wife  and  children. 

1  The  body  was  subsequently  removed  by  consent  to  the  Church 
of  San  Francesco  at  Milan,  where  Carmagnola  had  raised  a  marble 
tomb  for  himself  and  his  family  in  1431.  This  church  was  destroyed 
in  1798  to  make  way  for  barracks  ;  it  is  probable  that  the  body  of 
Carmagnola  disappeared  then.  There  was  a  tradition  that  the  count's 
head  was  placed  in  an  urn  above  the  door  leading  to  the  cloisters  of 
the  Frari.  In  February,  1874,  this  urn  was  opened,  and  not  only  a 
head,  but  a  whole  body  was  found  ;  but  the  vertebrae  of  the  neck  had 
not  been  severed,  so  that  it  could  not  be  the  body  of  Carmagnola. 


206  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

The  execution  of  Carmagnola  attracted  considerable 
attention  at  the  time,  and  the  question  of  his  inno- 
cence or  guilt  has  divided  historians  into  two  camps. 
As  far  as  we  can  gather,  contemporary  and  subse- 
quent Italian  opinion  justified  the  action  of  Venice. 
It  is  true  that  at  Florence  "  la  prexa  et  la  morte  del 
Carmagnola  e  ogni  di  piii  vituperata  et  biasimata 
qui,"1  as  a  certain  Gerardini  writes  on  May  15, 
1432,  to  the  Marquis  Niccol6  d'Este,  but  he  lets  us  see 
the  true  reason  for  this  condemnation,  not  the  belief 
in  the  injustice  of  the  act,  but  a  consideration  of  the 
harm  it  would  do  to  the  Veneto-Florentine  league ; 
Louis  Helian,  too,  ambassador  of  France,  when  ad- 
dressing the  Imperial  Diet  in  1510,  at  the  time  of  the 
league  of  Cambray,  cites,  in  his  long  charge  against 
Venice,  the  execution  of  Carmagnola,  but  his  attitude 
is  sufficiently  explained  by  his  mission  and  his  period. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  opinion  of  Carmagnola's 
brother  officers,  Gonzaga,  Orsini,  Colleoni,  and 
Moccino  is  against  him.  Macchiavelli  admits  his 
sluggishness  and  the  suspicion  it  aroused,  and  con- 
cludes that  as  Venice  could  not  stimulate  him  to 
action  and  dared  not  part  with  him,  there  was  only 
one  course  open  to  her,  and  that  she  took.  Girolamo 
Riario,  nephew  of  Sixtus  IV.,  is  said  to  have  remarked 
in  1480,  "  II  Carmagnola  li  aveva  ingannati  e  merita- 
tamente  ne  pago  la  pena."  *  But  when  we  come  to  the 
opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  attacks  on 
Venice  and  the  assertion  of  Carmagnola's  innocence 
are  renewed  with  great  vigour  by  many  writers, 
notably  by  Manzoni  and  Cibrario. 

We  must  endeavour  to  define  the  nature  of  Carma- 
gnola's guilt,  about  which  it  seems  to  us  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  and  to  discover,  if  possible,  what  was  the 
precise  charge  upon  which  he  was  tried  and  con- 
demned, for  this  does  not  emerge  from  the  documents  ; 

1  Battistella,  op.  cit.  p.  394. 

1  Lorenzi,  Cola  Montana^  p.  85,  quoted  by  Battistella,  op.  cit. 
P-  373- 


CARMAGNOLA  AND    VENICE  207 

in  them  Carmagnola  is  called  publicus  proditor,  but  they 
do  not  say  in  what  the  treason  consisted.  It  is  true 
they  state  as  the  motive  for  the  sentence  "  ea  que 
fecit  et  tractavit  in  damnum  et  prejudicium  negotiorum 
nostrorum,"  but  again  they  do  not  say  what  these 
"  actions  "  and  "  dealings  "  were ;  they  speak  of  "  certae 
importantissimae  et  justissimae  causae,"  but  that  is  still 
a  vague  phrase.  The  most  definite  statement  is  to  be 
found  in  the  despatch  of  the  Senate  to  Ermolao  Donate, 
envoy  at  Florence,  dated  April  8,  1432,  "  Nam  nil 
factum  fuit  nee  fieri  voluit  contra  inimicum  ligae 
nostrae.  .  .  .  Ymo  cum  eis  intelligentiam  habuit  ducendo 
sub  simulationem  rem  in  longum." * 

It  may  assist  our  inquiry  if  we  examine  the  rela- 
tions between  Carmagnola  and  the  Venetian  govern- 
ment under  two  distinct  periods,  the  first  covering 
the  three  wars  with  the  Duke  of  Milan,  during  which 
Carmagnola  was  in  touch  with  the  Senate  or  its 
committee  of  a  hundred  appointed  for  the  conduct  of 
the  first  war :  the  second  period,  dating  from  the 
intervention  of  the  Council  of  Ten  down  to  the  end. 
During  the  first  period  the  points  of  Carmagnola's 
conduct  which  stand  out  with  greatest  prominence, 
the  points  upon  which  the  Republic  appears  to  have 
had  plausible  grounds  for  complaint,  are  the  general's 
health,  his  inactivity,  and  his  communications  with 
the  duke. 

That  his  health  was  really  compromised  seems  clear. 
We  know  that  he  had  been  wounded  in  the  neck,  that 
he  had  received  an  injury  to  his  arm  so  serious  that 
the  court  which  tried  him  refrained  from  applying  the 
torture  of  the  cord,  that  a  severe  fall  from  his  horse 
shook  his  nervous  system,  and  that  a  long  attack  of 
jaundice  kept  him  an  invalid  for  a  month.  The  govern- 
ment had  not  realized  all  this  when  it  engaged  the 
services  of  Carmagnola.  He  had  come  fresh  from  his 
operations  on  behalf  of  the  duke,  where  his  energy  had 
been  striking.  The  contrast  was  exasperating  to  the 
1  Romanin,  op.  cit.  iv.  p.  159,  note  i. 


208  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

Republic,  and  though  due  to  no  fault  on  the  part  of 
Carmagnola,  can  hardly  be  left  out  of  account  in 
considering  the  attitude  of  Venice  towards  her 
general. 

As  to  his  persistent  inactivity,  his  "strana"  and 
"  inesplicable  lentezza,"  here  again  his  conduct  in  the 
duke's  and  in  Venetian  service  presents  a  striking 
contrast.  How  far  was  it  culpable,  and  when  did  it 
begin  to  rouse  suspicion  in  the  Senate  ?  The  fact 
of  his  inactivity  is  not  denied,  though  more  or  less 
plausible  explanations,  his  natural  caution,  want  of 
forage,  rainy  seasons,  have  been  put  forward  by  his 
defenders. 

Two  considerations  may  perhaps  be  advanced  in 
palliation  :  first,  his  ill-health,  which  sapped  his 
energy,  brilliancy,  elan,  as  a  commander ;  secondly, 
that  his  reputation  as  a  general  was  possibly  above 
his  merits.  We  must  remember  that  his  achievements 
for  the  duke  were  not  entirely  due  to  military  skill, 
that  bribery  played  a  large  part;  that  in  his  purely 
military  operations  he  was  confronted  by  a  number 
of  small  princes,  not  firmly  welded  together,  and  that 
he  could  and  did  deal  with  them  one  by  one,  whereas 
when  in  Venetian  service  he  was  face  to  face  with  the 
compact  forces  of  Visconti,  and  pitted  against  generals 
of  the  calibre  of  Piccinino  and  Sforza  and  Angelo 
della  Pergola;  that,  however  brilliant  the  victory  of 
Arbedo,  Carmagnola  has  to  share  the  glory  with  della 
Pergola. 

But  the  gravamen  against  Carmagnola  on  this  point 
of  inactivity  lies  in  the  undoubted  fact  that  his  various 
campaigns  show  a  crescendo  of  this  defect,  till  it 
amounts  to  a  dereliction  of  duty  which  in  any 
country  would  have  led  to  recall,  if  not  to  a  court- 
martial.1  But  Venice  could  not  cashier  a  mercenary 
general  for  fear  of  seeing  him  join  the  enemy.  She 

1  Admiral  Byng  was  shot  "  for  not  having  done  all  that  lay  in  his 
power."  Carmagnola's  action  in  his  last  campaign,  at  least,  would 
certainly  have  brought  him  under  that  charge. 


CARMAGNOLA  AND  VENICE  209 

was  on  the  horns  of  Macchiavelli's  dilemma.  Any 
action  meant  extreme  action,  and  Venice  naturally 
delayed  to  take  that. 

When  did  the  Senate  begin  to  suspect  that  this  in- 
activity was  culpable?  Signor  Battistella,  whose 
authority  is  of  the  highest,  is  inclined  to  place  the 
first  signs  of  suspicion  very  late,  quite  at  the  close 
of  Carmagnola's  career,  and  to  ascribe  it  for  the  most 
part  to  other  causes,  as  we  shall  presently  see.  He 
relies  chiefly  on  the  despatches  of  the  Senate  to  their 
general.  These  were  always  couched  in  terms  of  the 
greatest  respect,  and  profess  the  fullest  confidence, 
repeatedly  informing  the  general  that  they  left  him  a 
free  hand.  But  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  this  attitude 
was  rendered  imperative  by  the  circumstances.  There 
was,  at  first,  no  possible  proof  of  culpable  neglect, 
only  the  possible  induction  of  a  suspicion  ;  the  Senate 
could  not  afford  to  run  the  risk  of  offending  their 
general,  and  they  themselves  say  so  to  their  provveditori, 
though  in  instructing  them  not  to  criticise  his  opera- 
tions they  add  the  significant  words,  "even  though 
justified"  (September,  1427).  Moreover,  the  despatches 
do  show  a  gradual  change  in  tone,  displaying  a 
crescendo  of  surprise  and  irritation  very  near  akin 
to  suspicion.  But  there  is  another  point  which  makes 
us  doubt  whether  the  Senate  was  really  speaking  its 
true  mind  in  its  despatches  to  its  general.  When 
writing  to  the  envoys  at  Ferrara  on  April  8,  the 
Ten,  who  had  by  then  assumed  the  conduct  of  the 
case,  declare  that "  Videntibus  nobis  jamdudum  qualiter 
negotia  nostra  ducebantur  per  manus  comitis  Car- 
mignole  nostri  capitanei  generalis,  licet  apud  nos 
esset  non  parva  suspicio  de  factis  suis  per  plurimas 
conjecturas  et  diversissima  indicia,  dissimulavimus 
tamen  donee  res  ipsas  clarius  videremus."  Here  the 
Ten,  speaking  for  the  government,  state  positively 
that  for  a  long  time  they  had  entertained  no  small 
suspicion  of  Carmagnola's  action,  based  upon  various 
conjectures  and  indications,  but  that  they  had 

VOL.  i.  14 


210  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

concealed  this  state  of  mind  until  the  facts  them- 
selves were  clearer.  They  do  not  say  for  how  long 
this  suspicion  had  been  present  to  their  minds,  but 
they  do  admit  having  concealed  the  suspicion,  con- 
veying therefore  to  their  general  a  false  impression, 
which  he  was  not  clever  enough  to  penetrate.  We 
cannot  fix  precisely  the  date  at  which  the  government 
began  to  suspect  Carmagnola's  inactivity  as  culpable, 
but  it  appears  to  us  that  there  was  an  accumulation  of 
surprise  and  annoyance  which  eventually  took  the 
form  of  definite  suspicion  when  brought  into  conjunction 
with  the  third  point,  Carmagnola's  communications 
with  the  duke. 

On  this  point  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  precisely 
were  the  guiding  motives  of  the  duke  and  of 
Carmagnola.  Probably  the  duke  had  a  triple  object 
in  view :  he  hoped  to  win  back  Carmagnola  to  his 
service  ;  the  improvement  in  their  relations  which 
took  place  after  the  peace  of  Ferrara  in  1428,  when 
Filippo  restored  Carmagnola  to  the  position  he  had 
held  in  the  Milanese  previous  to  his  flight,  points 
to  this;  also  the  fact  that  in  1431  Carmagnola  built 
himself  a  family  tomb  at  S.  Francesco,  in  Milan. 
Further,  Filippo  hoped  that  Carmagnola  would  con- 
duct the  war  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  make  crushing 
use  of  any  advantages  he  might  gain,  or  that  he  would 
even  assist  his  late  master  by  his  inactivity,  as  actually 
happened  when  Carmagnola  insisted  on  going  into 
winter  quarters  in  August,  and  thus  set  free  Piccinino's 
forces.  Thirdly,  Filippo  may  have  calculated  that 
his  conduct  in  keeping  up  communications  with 
Carmagnola  must  eventually  lead  to  a  breach  be- 
tween the  Republic  and  her  general,  as  it  did ;  for 
here  again,  as  on  the  point  of  inactivity,  we  note 
a  growing  irritation  culminating  in  positive  orders 
to  cease  the  correspondence.  Carmagnola,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  doubtless  playing  the  game  of  a 
condottiere.  He  had  no  desire  to  see  the  duke,  a 
good  paymaster,  utterly  crushed ;  he  very  likely  did 


EVIDENCE  OF  GUILT  211 

contemplate  returning  to  the  Milanese,  as  his  tomb  in 
Milan  would  indicate.  We  know  that  he  was  aspiring 
to  an  independent  principality,  and  throughout  his 
correspondence  with  Filippo  he  may  have  been 
bargaining  with  the  duke  to  that  end,  though  here 
we  have  no  strong  evidence.  It  has  been  urged  in 
Carmagnola's  defence  that  there  was  nothing  culpable 
about  his  correspondence  with  Filippo,  for  he  kept  the 
Senate  fully  informed.  That  is  true,  but  we  do  not 
know  what  answers  he  returned  to  Filippo,  a  con- 
sideration that  must  eventually  have  occurred  to  the 
Senate ;  while,  if  we  are  to  accept  Porro's  statements, 
he  was  distinctly  culpable  when,  in  disobedience  to 
positive  orders,  he  received  a  ducal  emissary  by 
night  in  his  tent,  and  passed  beyond  the  lines  for  a 
colloquy. 

Coming  now  to  the  second  period,  what  was  it  that 
brought  about  the  intervention  of  the  Council  of  Ten? 
Was  any  new  and  positive  evidence  of  guilt  sub- 
mitted to  the  notice  of  the  government?  and  if  so, 
what  was  it? 

Turning  to  the  documents,  we  find  that  on  March  28 
the  following  resolution  was  moved  in  the  Council 
of  Ten :  "  Quod  consilium  rogatorum  licentietur  sed 
mandetur  omnibus  sub  pena  haveris  et  persone  quod 
teneant  secretas  litteras  in  dicto  consiglio  et  similiter 
convocatum  huius  consilii  de  Decem  ac  additionem 
datam  dicto  consilio,"1  from  which  it  would  appear 
that  despatches  or  letters  of  some  sort  had  been 
received  by  the  Senate,  read  by  them,  and  communi- 
cated to  the  Ten,  which  enjoined  on  the  senators 
secrecy  as  to  the  letters  and  as  to  the  convocation 
of  the  Ten  and  the  election  of  a  Giunta.  Again,  on 
April  7,  the  day  of  Carmagnola's  arrest,  and  before 
the  trial  or  the  examination  of  witnesses  and  of 
Carmagnola's  correspondence,  the  Ten  inform  the 
Venetian  envoys  in  Ferrara  that,  "cum  autem  certificati 
sumus  de  his  que  dudum  suspicabamur  ac  de  mala 

1  Cibrario,  op.  cit.  p.  54. 


212  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

intentione  pravisque  operibus  dicti  Comitis  claris- 
simam  habuerimus  certitudinem,"  they  had  summoned 
Carmagnola  to  their  presence  and  arrested  him. 
What  was  in  the  letters  ?  Whence  did  they  get  the 
certitude  of  Carmagnola's  "  evil  intent  and  wicked 
deeds"?  Signer  Battistella  suggests  that  the  fresh 
information  which  precipitated  the  action  of  the  Ten 
and  gave  them  the  certitude  of  their  suspicions  was 
the  news,  conveyed  in  the  letters  above  mentioned, 
that  Carmagnola  intended  to  hand  Brescia  over  to  the 
duke,  probably  on  the  understanding  that  he  was  to 
receive  it  back  as  a  fief.  Signer  Battistella  relies 
upon  the  statements  of  Girolamo  Bossi  and  of  Pos- 
sevin,  who,  however,  is  a  very  late  authority  (1611). 
Bossi  says,  "Alii  5  Maggio  il  Conte  Crimignola  volia 
dar  Briscia  al  conte  e  duca,  e  fu  fato  morir";  while 
Possevin  says,  "  Tentatus  pecunia  ac  promissis  re- 
cipiendae  Brixiae  diu  Vicecomitem  fovisse " ;  and  con- 
temporary corroboration  of  this  charge  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  Ten  showed  the  greatest  solicitude 
for  the  safety  of  Brescia  immediately  after  the  arrest  of 
the  count.  We  must  remember,  too,  that  just  before  he 
left  Filippo's  service  Carmagnola  invited  the  Brescians 
to  co-operate  with  him  and  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of 
the  duke,  which  would  indicate  that  the  lordship 
of  Brescia  was  already  the  goal  of  his  ambition ;  but 
in  that  case  the  suspicion  of  disloyalty  would  attach 
to  the  whole  of  the  period  of  Venetian  service — a 
supposition  which  Signer  Battistella  strenuously  com- 
bats. The  hypothesis  that  an  attempt  on  Brescia  was 
the  positive  act  of  treachery  which  gave  consistency 
to  all  previous  doubts  and  suspicions  and  led  immedi- 
ately to  the  trial  and  execution  of  the  count,  resting  as 
it  does  on  the  authority  of  Signer  Battistella,  carries 
great  weight.  And  in  support  of  Signor  Battistella's 
contention  that  new  and  definite  information  had 
reached, the  government  and  brought  about  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Ten,  I  have  come  across  a  document 
which  seems  to  have  escaped  the  lynx-eyed  research 


EVIDENCE  OF  GUILT  213 

of  my  predecessors.  In  the  Notatorio  of  the  Collegio l 
under  the  date  1432,  occurs  the  following  entry : 
"  Expense  mensis  Junii  pro  dando  illi  qui  detegit 
tractatum,  lire  i  soldi  6."  As  we  have  seen,  this 
register  of  the  Cabinet  contains  entries  for  sums  dis- 
bursed in  connection  with  the  trial  of  Carmagnola, 
payments  for  the  boats  sent  to  meet  him,  and  the  fee 
for  the  magister  torture  brought  from  Padua.  These 
belong  to  the  month  of  April,  while  the  trial  was 
going  on.  In  the  month  of  June,  the  month  following 
the  execution,  we  find  the  above  entry  referring  to 
money  paid  "to  him  who  discovered  the  plot."  Of 
course  it  is  not  certain  that  the  tractatus  refers  to  the 
affair  of  Carmagnola,  but  we  are  so  close  to  the  period 
of  the  great  trial  and  execution  that  the  very  indefinite- 
ness  of  the  expression  would  lead  us  to  think  that  it 
referred  to  the  case  which  had  so  recently  occupied  all 
men's  minds.  It  is,  therefore,  perhaps  not  too  hazard- 
ous to  conjecture  that  the  passage  does  refer  to  the 
Carmagnola  affair.  In  that  case  we  have  here  positive 
evidence  that  some  one  did  lay  before  the  government 
the  discovery  of  a  positive  plot  or  scheme  on  the  part 
of  Carmagnola,  and  that,  as  Signor  Battistella  argues, 
fresh  information  precipitated  the  action  of  the  Ten. 

There  is,  however,  another  reading  of  events  which 
appears  to  us  to  be  more  consonant  with  the  docu- 
ments, and  explains  their  silence  as  to  any  positive 
act  of  treachery.  It  is  possible  that  the  letters  re- 
ceived in  the  Senate  and  communicated  to  the  Ten 
were  despatches  reporting  Carmagnola's  conduct  in 
instigating  the  citizens  of  Bordelano  to  surrender  to 
the  ducal  troops  and  in  refusing  to  take  advantage  of 
the  ruined  state  of  the  walls  at  Soncino.  These  final 
evidences  of  his  deliberate  and  intentional  remissness 
and  disregard  of  Venetian  interests  came  to  fill  up 
the  measure  of  the  Senate's  disgust  and  to  convert 
suspicion  into  certainty.  The  Senate  accordingly 
placed  the  whole  matter  before  the  Ten  as  a  question 
1  Reg.  8,  fol.  109  V, 


2i4  CARMAGNOLA,  A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

now  clearly  affecting  the  public  safety,  and  the  Ten 
acted  as  we  have  seen.  This  interpretation,  if  correct, 
would  explain  why  Carmagnola  came  so  readily  to 
Venice  when  summoned — a  thing  he  would  hardly 
have  had  the  effrontery  to  do  had  he  been  conscious 
of  a  guilty  intention  towards  the  Venetians.  He  came 
readily  because  to  him  the  episodes  of  Bordelano  and 
Soncino  were  merely  like  so  many  others  which  the 
Senate  had  apparently  condoned.  He  did  not  take  into 
account  the  cumulative  result  of  these  repeated  laches ; 
nor  did  he  foresee  that,  taken  together,  they  would 
eventually  amount,  in  the  minds  of  his  employers, 
to  constructive  treachery.  This  is  what  the  Ten 
meant  when  they  declared  that  for  long  the  govern- 
ment had  been  suspicious,  but  had  concealed  their 
suspicion  till  facts  themselves — that  is,  the  repetition 
and  the  accentuation  of  these  acts  of  remissness — came 
to  clear  up  the  situation  and  to  bring  home  the  con- 
viction of  guilt.  The  supposition  we  are  advancing 
would  also  explain  what  the  Ten  had  in  mind  when  they 
said  that  it  appointed  a  commission  of  its  own  mem- 
bers "  ut  veniatur  in  lucem  et  veritatem  eorum  que 
habentur  contra  comitem  Carmagnolam  "  ;  they  would 
hardly  have  used  such  phraseology  had  they  had  in 
their  hands  proofs  of  a  new  and  positive  act  of  treachery 
such  as  the  surrender  of  Brescia  to  the  duke.  What 
they  really  meant  was  that  their  commission  should 
examine  these  fresh  episodes  of  Bordelano  and  Son- 
cino in  connection  with  Carmagnola's  whole  conduct 
of  the  war.  The  view  we  are  expressing  is  also  in 
perfect  accord  with  the  one  definite  statement  as  to 
the  nature  of  Carmagnola's  guilt,  contained  in  the 
despatch  from  the  Senate  to  the  envoys  at  Florence. 
"  Quod,  sicut  notissimam  est  non  solum  suis  Magn. 
sed  toti  mundo  jam  bono  tempore  nil  fuit  nobis  tenere 
ad  nostra  servitia  magnam  quantitatem  gentium  .  .  . 
et  expendere  maximam  quantitatem  pecuniarum,  nam 
nil  factum  fuit  nee  fieri  voluit  contra  inimicum 
ligae  nostrae  .  .  .  per  comitem  comunem  nostrum 


EVIDENCE  OF  GUILT  215 

capit.  Generalem,  ymo  cum  eis  intelligentiam  habuit 
ducendo  sub  simulationem  rem  in  longum  et  querendo 
subvertere  statum  nostrum  sicut  clare  detectum  est." 
Here  there  is  clearly  no  reference  to  a  distinct  and 
recent  act  of  treachery,  but  rather  to  a  long-drawn 
course  of  misconduct,  amounting  in  the  end  to  con- 
structive treason.  Finally,  Giorgio  Cornaro,  when 
submitted  to  torture  by  Filippo  in  order  to  discover 
who  had  accused  Carmagnola  of  secret  intelligence 
with  Milan,  though  the  agony  was  so  great  that 
he  himself  said  he  would  have  revealed  the  name  of 
his  own  son  rather  than  face  a  repetition  of  it,  can 
only  repeat  again  and  again  that  he  did  not  know  that 
any  one  had  brought  such  a  charge.  As  Cornaro  was 
elected  one  of  the  Giunta  to  try  Carmagnola,  though 
he  did  not  serve,  and  as  he  was  sent  as  provveditore  in 
Brescia  immediately  after  Carmagnola's  arrest,  it  seems 
certain  that  he  would  have  known  the  name  of  the  accuser 
and  the  nature  of  the  charge,  had  there  been  one.1 

These  are  the  considerations  which  induce  us  to 
believe  that  the  Venetians  tried  and  executed  Car- 
magnola upon  cumulative  evidence  deduced  from  his 
whole  conduct  in  their  service,  and  that  they  were 
justified  in  doing  so.  He  had  acted  like  a  true  captain 
of  adventure,  thinking  chiefly  of  his  own  interests, 
holding  his  employers  and  their  desires  in  small 
account,  not  openly  and  positively  a  traitor  perhaps, 
but  traitorous  in  so  far  that  he  sacrificed  their  aims 
to  his  own.  His  intelligence  was  not  of  a  high  order, 
and  he  had  Venice  for  an  employer.  He  misread  the 
situation,  and  took  long-suffering  for  weakness.  He 
failed  to  discern  his  peril  between  the  Republic  and 
the  duke  of  Milan.  He  ran  the  risks  of  the  danger- 
ous game  of  adventure,  and  came  near  to  winning 
the  highest  prize;  but  he  forgot  the  chance  against 
him,  the  power  and  the  solvency  of  Venice.  For  his 
mistake  he  paid  the  price  with  his  head. 

1  Romanin,  op.  cit.  iv.  p.  168,  note  I. 


Political  Assassination 

THE  charge  against  the  Council  of  Ten,  that  it  had 
frequent  recourse  to  political  assassination  and  was  in 
the  habit  of  using  poison  for  the  suppression  of  its 
enemies,  has  been  raised  and,  we  believe,  exhausted 
by  the  studies  of  such  scholars  as  de  Mas  Latrie,1 
Fulin,2  and  Lamansky.3  Hitherto  the  question  has 
appeared  under  various  aspects.  Popular  opinion, 
formed  by  the  pen  of  romancers,  has  painted  the  Ten 
as  a  dark,  mysterious  body,  employing  all  the  horrors 
of  dungeons,  torture,  poison,  to  heighten  the  terror 
which  its  name  inspired.  More  critical  students  of 
Venetian  history  have  been  inclined,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  treat  this  popular  opinion  as  a  gross  exaggera- 
tion. We  now  know  the  whole  truth  on  the  subject 
of  state  poisonings  in  Venice.  The  careful  examina- 
tion of  Venetian  archives  has  left  few,  if  any,  new 
documents  to  be  discovered  ;  and  we  are  able  to 
measure,  upon  the  fullest  evidence,  the  culpability  or 
the  innocence  of  the  governing  council  in  the  Venetian 
Republic. 

In  his  Projet  cT Empoisonnement  M.  de  Mas  Latrie 
brought  serious  charges  of  political  immorality  against 
the  Council  of  Ten,  and  declared  that  "  le  depouille- 
ment  integral  et  sincere  de  tout  ce  qui  reste  des 
archives  du  Conseil  impose  a  la  conscience  des 

1  Projet  d* Empoisonnement  de  Mahomet  II.,  par  M.  de  Mas 
Latrie,  Archives  de  f  Orient  Latin,  tome  i.  (Paris  :  1881). 

J  Errori  Vecchi  e  Documenti  Nuovi,  da  Rinaldo  Fulin,  Atti  del 
Reale  Istituto  Veneto,  torn,  ottavo,  serie  quinta  (Venice :  1881). 

1  Secrets  d'Etat  de  Venise,  par  Vladimir  Lamansky  (St.  Petersburg  ; 
1884). 

Hfi 


THEORETICAL  JUSTIFICATION        217 

6crivains  Wnitiens"  who  intend  to  defend  their  country 
against  the  charge.  To  this  challenge  the  late  Sig. 
Fulin  replied,  in  the  same  year,  by  his  articles  entitled 
Errori  Vecchi  e  Documents  Nuovi ;  and  four  years  later 
M.  Lamansky,  in  his  vast  collection  of  documents, 
supplements  and  completes  Sig.  Fulin's  labours,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  renews  M.  de  Mas  Latrie's  charge 
against  the  Republic. 

The  whole  subject  of  assassinations  in  Italy  pos- 
sesses a  sinister  interest.  It  includes  those  terrible 
and  picturesque  stories  which  have  so  often  served 
the  pen  of  our  playwrights ;  tragedies  that  find  their 
home  peculiarly  in  Italy  of  the  Renaissance  ;  the 
stories  of  the  Cenci,  Vittoria  Accoramboni,  Lorenzino 
dei  Medici,  Caraffa,  and  many  others.  These  dark 
passages  form  the  romance  of  history ;  they  hardly 
belong  to  history  itself  in  its  higher  departments. 
But  the  widest  and  deepest  interest  which  attaches  to 
such  episodes  of  crime  and  blood  lies  rather  in  the 
general  question  which  they  raise,  how  are  we  to 
explain  the  attitude  of  a  people  refined,  cultivated, 
far  from  brutal  in  their  tastes  and  in  their  vices, 
who  yet  freely  admitted  the  use  of  such  weapons  as 
the  poisoned  dagger  and  cup  ?  and  that,  too,  not 
merely  in  private  life,  where  the  fury  of  revenge  may 
account  for  the  horror  of  many  deaths,  but  even  in 
their  political  relations  with  foreign  powers,  where 
these  revolting  weapons  were  necessarily  used  in  cold 
blood,  and  where  treachery  was  adopted  with  as  little 
scruple  as  open  war  is  now  declared. 

It  is  this  phenomenon  of  murder  justified  as  a 
weapon  and  admitted  in  the  code  of  international  law 
that  attracts  and  rivets  our  attention.  That  we  have 
not  exaggerated  the  frequency  of  attempted  assassina- 
tion the  authorities  we  have  cited  abundantly  prove. 
That  we  do  not  over-estimate  the  sanction  of  assassi- 
nation will  be  made  clear  by  the  following  passages 
taken  from  a  variety  of  writers  upon  political  ethics ; 
although  we  must  remember  that  the  whoje  tjuestign 


218  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

was,  as  Cocceius  has  it,  "  materia  intricata  admodum 
et  hactenus  non  satis  extricata." 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  the  famous  passage  of  his 
Summa,  says,  "  It  is  not  lawful  to  slay  any  one 
except  upon  the  public  authority  and  for  the  common 
weal."  "  He  who  exercises  the  public  authority  and 
kills  a  man  in  his  own  defence  justifies  his  action 
on  the  ground  of  the  common  weal."  Again,  Baldus 
declares,  "  It  is  lawful  to  slay  your  enemy  by 
poison."  Cocceius  argues  that  assassins  and  poisons 
are  not  admissible  weapons  in  time  of  war,  unless 
the  war  may  be  absolutely  terminated  by  their  means. 
Grotius  is  even  more  explicit :  "  Quern  interficere 
liceat,"  he  says,  "  eum  gladio  aut  veneno  interimas 
nihil  interest,  si  jus  naturae  respicias";  and  he  con- 
firms this  dictum  by  adding  that  "  to  slay  your 
enemy  wherever  you  find  him  is  sanctioned  not  only 
by  the  law  of  nature,  but  also  by  the  law  of  nations  ; 
nor  will  it  serve  to  prove  the  contrary  that  those  who 
are  arrested  for  such  acts  are  put  to  death  in  torments, 
for  that  is  only  another  proof  of  the  law  of  nations 
that  against  foes  all  is  permissible " ;  upon  which 
Gronovius  remarks,  "  and  therefore  you  may  slay  your 
enemy  when  he  is  unarmed,  unawares,  even  asleep." 
And  this  is  what  Burlamachi  has  upon  the  point :  "  To 
the  question  whether  the  assassination  of  a  foe  be 
lawful,  I  reply  yes,  if  the  agent  of  the  assassination  be 
a  subject  of  the  prince  who  employs  him  and  not  of 
the  victim."  We  would  call  attention  to  this  curious 
reservation  made  by  Burlamachi ;  it  introduces  a  new 
point  in  political  ethics,  a  point  to  which  we  shall 
presently  return.  Finally,  Puffendorff  decides  that 
war,  while  it  lasts,  breaks  all  bonds  of  reciprocal 
rights  and  duties,  and  that  in  taking  arms  against  us 
our  enemy  has  granted  us  an  unlimited  faculty  to 
employ  against  him  all  possible  acts  of  hostility. 

So  far,  then,  the  lawyers.  If  we  turn  to  the  Church 
we  find  the  same  principles  enunciated  with  even 
greater  frankness,  especially  as  regards  tyrannicide. 


THEORETICAL  JUSTIFICATION         219 

The  churchmen  were,  of  course,  influenced  by  the 
examples  of  Jael,  Judith,  and  others.  Mariana,  De 
Rege  et  Regis  Institutione,  cap.  vi.,  speaking  of  the 
assassination  of  Henry  III.  by  Jacques  Clement,  says, 
"  Nuperque  in  Gallia  monumentxim  nobile  est  consti- 
tutum.  .  .  .  quo  Principes  doceantur  impios  haud 
impune  cadere";  and  adds,  doubtless  referring  to 
St.  Thomas,  that  Clement  learnt  from  the  theolo- 
gians that  it  is  lawful  to  slay  a  tyrant.  Mariana 
observes,  it  is  true,  that  the  Council  of  Constance  had 
condemned  this  doctrine,  but  no  pope  had  ever 
approved  the  condemnation,  and  therefore  it  was 
invalid  in  the  eyes  of  good  churchmen.  For  a  general 
defence  of  assassination  and  easements  for  the  same 
we  may  call  attention  to  that  curious  collection 
of  Jesuitical  opinions  compiled,  under  the  title  of 
Aries  Jesuiticce,  by  "  Cristianus  Alethophilus  " ;  warn- 
ing our  readers,  however,  that  the  compilation  is 
hostile. 

The  passages  we  have  just  cited  abundantly  prove 
the  laxity  of  view  upon  this  question  of  assassination — 
a  laxity  which  began  in  Italy,  but  spread  all  over 
Europe  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
On  the  part  of  lawyers,  as  on  the  part  of  churchmen, 
there  was  a  steady  and  determined  attempt  to  bring  the 
crime  of  assassination  within  the  pale  of  international 
and  of  ecclesiastical  law.  This  is  the  phenomenon 
which  we  propose  to  study — to  trace  its  origin,  its 
growth,  its  justification,  the  reasons  which  induced 
men  to  accept  so  monstrous  a  proposition,  its  inherent 
weakness,  and  its  failure. 

In  examining  the  documents  before  us  we  see  that 
the  assassinations  with  which  they  deal  fall  under  four 
heads  :  tyrannicide,  political  assassination,  execution- 
ary  assassination,  and  private  assassination.  The 
attitude  of  men's  minds  towards  assassination  varied 
as  the  kind  varied.  Executionary  assassination,  the 
murder  of  a  fugitive  criminal,  sanctioned  or  even 
invited  by  the  government  from  which  he  was  flying, 


220  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

we  may  dismiss  at  once  from  our  consideration.  In  the 
period  of  which  we  are  treating  such  retribution  hardly 
required  any  justification.  There  were  simply  two 
methods  of  procedure  against  criminals :  the  ordinary 
method  of  justice,  which  ended  in  an  execution  ;  the 
extraordinary,  or  supplemental,  method  of  justice, 
which  ended  in  an  assassination.  Private  assassi- 
nation, too,  though  frequent  enough,  was  never,  so  far 
as  we  know,  recognized  as  a  possibly  legitimate  act  by 
the  secular  power,  whatever  attempts  the  Jesuits  may 
be  reported  to  have  made  to  palliate  the  crime  in  order 
to  establish  their  own  ascendency  over  the  actions  and 
the  consciences  of  their  penitents.  This  leaves  for 
our  consideration  the  two  species  of  tyrannicide  and 
political  assassination,  or  assassination  used  as  a 
weapon  against  foes  of  the  state. 

The  point  of  view  which  justified  tyrannicide  is  not 
difficult  to  understand.  The  crimes  and  cruelties  of 
princes  have  frequently  rendered  them  intolerable  to 
their  subjects.  There  is  a  point  beyond  which  human 
endurance  will  not  go.  Mariana  (loc.  cit.}  lays  it 
down  that  "  Principum  potentiam  imbecillam  esse  si 
reverentia  ab  animis  subditorum  semel  abscesserit." 
The  greatness  of  the  prince's  position,  however,  the 
number  of  his  guards,  the  power  and  importance  of 
those  who  are  attached  to  his  throne  by  personal  and 
selfish  motives,  the  enormous  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  successful  revolution,  all  render  his  person  im- 
pervious to  any  attack  except  the  secret  and  perfidious 
attack  of  the  assassin. 

The  authority  of  the  ancients,  the  study  of  Plutarch, 
the  praises  lavished  on  the  names  of  Harmodius, 
of  Brutus,  of  almost  all  tyrannicides,  became  an  in- 
centive to  those  who  thirsted  for  fame,  or  were 
enamoured  of  liberty.  The  well-known  conspiracy 
against  the  Medici  in  1512-3  will  occur  to  every  one, 
and  the  cry  of  Boscoli  to  his  friend  Luca  della  Robbia, 
"Ah!  Luca,  take  Brutus  from  my  heart,  tjiat  I  may 
die  entirely  Christian," 


TYRANNICIDE  221 

Lorenzino  de' Medici's1  "Apology  for  the  Murder 
of  Alessandro,  Duke  of  Florence,"  is  a  document 
full  of  instruction  in  this  regard.  Lorenzino  opens 
with  a  defence  of  his  action  generally,  based  upon 
the  example  of  the  ancients,  and  the  sacred  duty 
imposed  on  each  one  to  secure  political  freedom  for 
himself  and  his  fellow-citizens.  He  then  comes  to 
a  more  difficult  part  of  the  count  against  him,  the 
opinion  of  those  who  maintain  that,  although  Alex- 
ander was  a  tyrant,  and  therefore  in  all  justice 
slayable,  Lorenzino  had  no  right  to  be  his  executioner 
"  essendo  del  sangue  suo  e  fidandosi  egli  di  me." 
Over  this  point  we  must  pause,  for  it  introduces  the 
one  limitation  which  Italian  sentiment  seems  to  have 
imposed  on  the  perfect  justifiability  of  tyrannicide. 
The  opinion  of  Burlamachi,  quoted  above,  will  recur 
to  our  minds ;  he  says  that  assassination  is  legitimate, 
provided  that  one  of  the  patient's  own  subjects  be  not 
employed.  This  would  seem  to  be  an  expansion  of 
the  idea  which  Lorenzino  is  combating,  the  idea  that 
treachery  between  blood  relations  is  unjustifiable. 
The  opinion  appears  to  have  been  deeply  rooted  in 
the  Italian  view  on  the  question ;  witness  the  appeal 
of  Bernabd  VTsconti  when  treacherously  seized  by 
his  nephew,  "  O  Gian  Galeazzo,  non  esser  traditor 
del  tuo  sangue " ;  and  again,  an  anonymous  author, 
whom  we  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  quote  in 
full,  argues  that  if  Ercole  d'Este,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  had 
any  just  cause  of  complaint  against  the  Marquis 
of  Pescara  for  compassing  his  life,  it  must  have  been 
based  on  the  fact  that  the  Marquis  was  related  to 
him  by  ties  of  blood.  Lorenzino  defends  himself  first 
on  the  ground  that  Alexander  was  not  a  Medici  at 
all,  but  the  bastard  son  of  a  groom's  wife ;  and 
secondly,  by  boldly  asserting  that  even  had  Alex- 
ander been  his  cousin,  "le  leggi  ordinate  contro  a' 

1  "  L'  apologia  .  .  .  di  Lorenzino  de'  Medici,"  published  in  Daelli's 
Biblioteca  Rara,  vol.  ii.  (Milan :  1862) ;  also  Lorenzaccto,  by  Pierre 
Gauthiez  (Paris,  Fontemoing :  1904). 


222 

tiranni,"  and  the  general  consensus  of  opinion  would 
have  compelled  him  to  the  deed. 

As  to  the  legal  aspects  of  tyrannicide,  perhaps  no 
one  would  have  dared  to  enunciate  such  a  doctrine 
inside  a  tyrant's  own  dominions.  The  approval  was 
usually  popular,  ex  post  facto,  and  dependent  on 
success.  Yet  there  was  clearly  an  effort  to  formulate 
such  deeds  to  bring  them  within  the  pale  of  some 
recognised  law.  And  this  observation  leads  us  to 
another  which  may,  in  part,  account  for  the  number 
and  the  audacity  of  the  regicides  which  occur  in 
Italian  history,  the  observation  that  the  titles  of 
almost  all  the  native  Italian  princes  were  more  or 
less  defective.  We  have  only  to  remember  the  con- 
stant usurpations,  the  eagerness  with  which  the 
Scaligers,  Carraresi,  Visconti,  and  Sforza  sought  for 
an  imperial  title,  and  the  difficulty  with  which  they 
obtained  one,  to  perceive  at  once  how  important  a 
sound  title  must  have  been.  This  weakness  in  Italian 
titles  was  inherent  in  the  fundamental  conception  of 
Italian  politics,  dating  from  the  age  of  Charlemagne, 
the  division  of  the  supreme  authorities  temporal 
and  spiritual  between  the  emperor  and  the  pope. 
No  one  of  these  Italian  princes  could  claim  to  be 
autocratic  in  theory  as  well  as  in  fact ;  therefore 
the  plea  of  divine  right  was  of  no  avail  for  him 
as  a  safeguard ;  and  his  murder  became  almost 
legitimate  if  it  received  the  sanction  of  his  superiors, 
the  emperor  or  the  pope.  We  may  conclude  that 
tyrannicide  was  held  to  be  justifiable ;  but  public 
opinion  placed  limits  upon  the  degrees  within  which 
treachery  was  not  to  be  used,  the  degrees  of 
blood  relationship.  We  must  remember,  however, 
that  this  species  of  assassination  had  no  place  in 
Venice.  Owing  to  the  nature  of  her  constitution, 
however  tyrannical  she  might  have  been — though 
indeed  she  was  not — there  was  no  one  man  by 
whose  death  the  burden  of  tyranny  could  have 
been  removed  from  the  necks  of  the  people.  The 


THE  UNDERLYING  PRINCIPLES        223 

whole  governmental  authority  in  Venice  resided  in 
councils,  committees  of  nobles  —  corporations,  in 
short,  which  are  impervious  to  the  dagger  and  to 
poison. 

And  this  brings  us  now  to  the  fourth  and  last 
species  of  assassination — political  assassination,  as  we 
have  called  it — in  which  Venice  enjoys  a  sinister 
prominence.  Here  the  question  of  the  natural  history 
of  the  idea,  and  the  attitude  of  men's  minds  towards 
it,  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  solve  as  it  is  in  the  case 
of  tyrannicide.  How  came  the  pernicious  doctrine, 
that  states  may  use  assassination  as  a  weapon,  to  be 
taught  ?  how  is  it  that  this  teaching  took  such  a  hold 
upon  politicians  of  that  time  ?  For  the  origin  of  the 
doctrine  we  shall  have  to  go  back  to  two  principles 
which,  whatever  may  be  their  ethical  validity,  are 
deeply  seated  in  human  nature — the  idea  that  might 
is  right,  and  the  idea  of  expediency.  The  one  finds 
a  concise  expression  in  Dante's  well-known  dictum 
that  "ille  populus  qui,  cunctis  athletizantibus  pro 
imperio  mundi,  praevaluit,  de  jure  divino  prsevaluit." 
This  is  a  doctrine  of  fatalism  tempered  by  a  belief 
in  the  divine  governance  of  the  world.  In  this  view 
every  struggle  with  a  foe  is  a  species  of  duel,  an 
appeal  to  the  "judicium  Dei."  It  is  inspired  by  the 
old  belief,  of  which  we  get  the  converse  in  the  cynical 
epigram,  "  God  is  on  the  side  of  the  strongest 
battalions,"  that  the  supreme  ruler  will  not  allow 
the  wrong  to  be  victorious,  and  that  point  being 
granted,  it  follows  that  all  means  towards  victory  at 
once  become  legitimate,  because  they  are  means  which 
assist  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  will. 

The  second  principle  which  underlies  the  doctrine 
of  political  assassination — the  principle  of  expediency, 
which  was  summed  up  in  the  famous  proverb  "  Uomo 
morto  non  fa  guerra" — has  its  roots  in  a  very  different 
part  of  human  nature.  It  belongs  not  to  the  necessi- 
tarian and  fatalistic  side,  but  to  the  side  of  free  will, 
to  the  ineradicable  belief  that  man  can  modify  his 


224  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

conditions  and  govern  his  actions,  and  is  entitled  to 
do  so  with  a  view  to  his  own  safety  and  convenience. 
These  two  ideas,  which  lie  so  wide  apart,  at  the 
extreme  poles  of  human  thought,  yet  form  the  basis 
of  any  attempt  to  formulate  and  to  bring  within  the 
pale  of  law  the  doctrine  of  political  assassination. 
When  the  propositions  of  this  doctrine  come  to  be 
openly  discussed,  we  shall  find,  as  is  natural,  that 
jurists,  churchmen,  and  politicians  alike  rely  upon 
the  latter  basis — the  basis  of  expediency — for  the 
justification  of  the  doctrine.  The  bias  in  this  direc- 
tion was  given  by  the  gradual  development  of  the 
modern  state  with  its  principles  of  policy,  reasons 
of  state — statecraft,  in  fact — which  that  development 
produced.  Macchiavelli  formulated  the  doctrine  that 
the  state  weal,  the  state  needs,  were  the  supreme, 
the  sole,  the  righteous  end  and  aim  of  every  ruler 
and  of  every  citizen,  an  end  to  which  all  other  con- 
siderations must  yield.  Then  came  the  casuists  with 
their  teaching  that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  and 
we  at  once  get  the  doctrine  of  political  assassination, 
that  where  state  expediency  requires  the  removal  of 
a  foe,  that  may  be  legitimately  accomplished  by  any 
means  in  your  power.  And  yet,  although  the  doc- 
trine was  thus  formulated  as  a  tenable  thesis  in 
political  ethics,  and  assassination  was  sanctioned  as 
a  legitimate  weapon  in  the  hands  of  government,  it 
is  impossible  to  read  the  documents  relating  to  the 
question  without  feeling  that  men  had  a  bad  con- 
science on  the  matter.  The  Council  of  Ten  dreaded 
the  publication  of  their  secrets ;  they  insist  upon 
"  secretezza  et  iterum  secretezza,"  not  solely  through 
fear  of  reprisals  in  kind — as  we  have  pointed  out, 
reprisals  in  kind  against  a  corporation  were  difficult,  if 
not  impossible — but  also  through  fear  of  the  infamy  such 
revelations  would  bring  upon  their  state.  The  truth  is, 
that  the  conscience  of  European  humanity  had  already 
been  moulded  upon  the  Christian  principle  "  Love 
your  enemies."  That  bond  was  laid  upon  the  human 


THE  DOCTRINE  STATED  225 

conscience,  however  far  human  action  might  depart 
from  the  rule.  The  conscience  cannot  be  surrendered. 
No  doctrine  laid  down  by  jurists  and  supported  by 
cogent  arguments,  no  absolution  on  the  part  of  the 
Church,  no  ex  cathedra  dogmas  as  to  the  non-culpa- 
bility of  such  acts,  were  of  any  avail  to  free  these 
men  from  the  sense  of  sin  before  the  bar  of  their  own 
higher  selves. 

So  far  we  have  endeavoured  to  trace  the  origin  and 
growth  of  this  doctrine,  that  political  assassination  may 
be  a  legitimate  weapon  in  the  armoury  of  nations.  What 
the  doctrine  looks  like  when  stated  in  its  fullest  form 
we  shall  best  gather  from  the  treatise  of  the  anonymous 
author  to  whom  we  have  already  referred.  The 
document  throws  valuable  light  upon  the  whole 
discussion,  and  contains  as  cold  and  as  precise  a  state- 
ment of  the  position  as  we  can  hope  to  find.  Our 
author  entitles  his  paper,  "  Of  the  Right  that  Princes 
have  to  compass  the  Lives  of  their  Enemies'  Allies  " l : 

"  The  Marquis  of  Pescara,  as  minister  and  captain- 
general  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  organizes  and 
conducts  a  conspiracy  against  the  life  of  Ercole, 
Duke  of  Ferrara,  ally  and  relation  of  Francis,  King 
of  France.  The  conspiracy  does  not  take  effect ;  and 
coming  to  the  knowledge  of  the  duke,  he  loudly  com- 
plains of  this  particular  machination  against  his  life. 
There  seems  to  be  some  doubt,  then,  whether  one 
prince,  in  order  to  weaken  another  prince,  his  enemy, 
may  and  can  procure  the  death  of  his  enemy's  allies. 
For  the  complaints  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  are  of  such 
a  nature  that  they  almost  amount  to  a  declaration  that 
actions  of  this  sort  are  entirely  illicit  and  unjust. 

"  Upon  this  point  I  repeat  what  I  said  incidentally 
at  the  moment  when  the, event  was  under  discussion, 
and  I  add  some  considerations  with  which  a  more 
profound  analysis  of  the  subject  furnishes  me ;  and 
I  maintain  that  in  all  strictness  of  sound  policy  you 

1  Lamansky,  op.  cit.  pp.  529-33.  The  MS.  belonged  to  Comm. 
Nicol6  Barozzi. 

VOL.   I.  15 


226  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

may  and  can  debilitate  your  enemy  in  any  way  you 
choose,  even  by  the  treacherous  murder  of  his  allies ; 
and  if  the  Duke  of  .Ferrara  complained  at  the  time  of 
the  arrangements  made  to  his  disadvantage,  he  did  so 
more  because  of  the  particular  and  personal  position 
of  the  marquis,  the  promoter  and  conductor  of  the 
conspiracy,  than  because  of  the  conspiracy  itself. 

"  And,  to  prove  the  first  clause  of  my  thesis,  I  affirm 
that  political  expediency,  or  reasons  of  state  as  we 
call  it,  teaches  and  permits  each  prince  to  secure  above 
everything  the  preservation  of  his  state,  that  he  may 
subsequently  proceed  to  its  aggrandizement ;  and, 
therefore,  weighing  and  foreseeing  all  that  may  injure 
and  all  that  may  benefit  his  state,  he  must  take  every 
possible  means  to  anticipate  the  one  in  order  to  pre- 
vent it,  and  to  court  the  other  in  order  to  appropriate 
it ;  and  hence  it  follows  that  all  action  taken  with  such 
ends  in  view  is  said  to  be  taken  for  reasons  of  state, 
and  that  is  a  rational  justification  of  action  which  has 
every  for  scope  and  object  the  conservation  of  the 
status  quo,  or  the  maintenance  of  the  state  itself. 

"  These  rules  of  political  expediency,  which,  be  it 
observed,  are  obligatory  for  no  other  object  save  for 
the  service,  the  security,  and  the  perpetuation  of 
sovereignty,  interpret  the  laws,  alter  prescription, 
change  habits,  and  as  it  were  arbitrate,  'dispose,  and 
convert  all  the  accidents  of  time  and  all  human  opera- 
tions to  their  own  proper  use  and  benefit,  to  such  an 
extent  that,  magnifying  the  good  and  justifying  the 
evil  by  this  sanction  of  reasons  of  state,  they  curb 
and  predominate  the  vulgar  estimate  of  actions,  vivify 
the  will  and  the  conduct  of  princes,  and  constitute 
themselves  mistress  in  spite  of  custom  and  morality. 

"  In  every  state  political  expediency  rules  absolutely 
in  its  own  right;  but  in  the  more  powerful  states 
it  acquires  a  peculiarly  extended  jurisdiction  and 
authority  from  the  very  power  and  pre-eminence  of 
those  states ;  and,  therefore,  we  see  the  moral  laws 
contravened  and  superseded  by  great  princes  much 


THE  DOCTRINE  STATED  227 

more  lightly  than  by  their  inferiors,  because  in  their 
case  every  title,  every  positive  prescription  of  laws 
human  and  divine,  must  be  made  to  bow  to  their 
advantage ;  hence  for  great  princes  that  is  lawful  and 
customary  which  is  absolutely  forbidden  and  impos- 
sible for  others.  We  argue  that  war  no  less  than 
peace  is  a  necessary  and  efficacious  agent  in  the 
preservation  and  aggrandizement  of  dominion ;  in 
war,  however,  political  expediency  and  reasons  of 
State  vigorously  assert  their  authority  within  this 
their  proper  jurisdiction  ;  and  they  do  so  with  all 
the  more  resolution  that  war  proceeds  by  fury  and 
violence,  by  outrageous  and  impetuous  acts,  and  by 
these  very  means  procures  the  extension  and  advan- 
tage of  the  state.  And  so,  if  the  Emperor  Charles, 
warring  against  the  King  of  France,  perchance  con- 
descended to  attempt  the  life  of  Ercole,  Duke  of 
Ferrara,  friend  and  relation  of  that  king,  he  only 
did  what  war  and  the  customary  reasons  of  state 
enabled  and  obliged  him  to  do. 

"  Moreover,  in  the  conduct  and  progress  of  a  war, 
since  the  sovereign  is  bound  for  his  own  advantage 
and  security  to  debilitate  his  foe  by  all  the  ways  and 
means  in  his  power,  this  method  of  depriving  him  oi 
friends  and  adherents  is  both  most  opportune  and 
obligatory.  And  should  it  haply  be  urged  that  the 
murder  of  an  allied  prince  is  an  action  too  base  to 
be  compassed,  we  may  reply  that  in  the  fury  and 
duration  of  the  war  there  is  no  action  so  base  that  it 
may  not  be  demonstrated  as  a  direct  consequence  of 
the  war  itself,  and  that  this  very  quality  of  base 
iniquity  is  to  be  found  in  all  wars,  even  in  those 
justified  by  necessity ;  nay,  further,  we  argue  that 
the  iniquity  which  achieves  the  highest  amount  of 
safety  to  him  who  employs  it  in  such  cases  is  always 
the  least  damnable  iniquity.  And  this  holds  good  if 
we  apply  our  universal  proposition  to  the  particular 
case  before  us ;  for  it  was  of  the  highest  importance  to 
the  emperor  to  sunder  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  and  the 


228  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

King  of  France,  and  political  expediency  pointed  out 
to  him  that  if  all  other  means  failed  or  were  difficult, 
he  ought  to  adopt  that  kind  of  sundering  which  would 
prove  final  and  secure.  By  the  murder  of  his  ally  you 
effectually  rob  your  foe  of  his  forces,  counsel,  and 
support.  This  could  not  be  done  so  easily  either  by 
attacking  the  ally  in  his  state,  for  that  would  only 
nerve  him  to  fresh  efforts,  nor  yet  by  expelling  him 
from  his  kingdom,  for  we  have  often  seen  exiled 
sovereigns  return  to  their  dominions,  after  a  brief 
period  of  revolution,  nourishing  hostility  and  medi- 
tating revenge.  Nor  should  any  methods  you  may 
adopt  towards  such  an  end  seem  strange  and  iniquitous, 
for  open  war  does  not  exclude  methods  quite  as  vicious. 
I  will  even  venture  to  declare  that  conspiracy  may  be 
the  least  impious  method  you  can  use.  For  sieges, 
which  by  their  long-drawn  cruelty  drive  to  a  miserable 
end  so  many  innocent  lives,  the  ravaging  of  fields  and 
the  poisoning  of  wells,  which  destroy,  as  in  a  lightning 
flash,  such  wealth  of  earth's  produce,  and  send  irre- 
vocably to  death  so  many  beasts  and  hapless  folk 
whose  lives  were  free  from  blame,  the  sack  of  cities, 
and  their  surrender  to  the  soldiers'  licence,  wherein 
they  commit  unspeakable  atrocities,  the  sowing  of 
revolution,  and  the  disturbance  of  governments  under 
pretext  of  religion, — all  these,  I  say,  are  actions 
far  more  vicious  and  detestable  than  those  which 
any  possible  conspiracy  could  bring  to  birth.  For, 
pressed  to  its  last  issue,  a  conspiracy  only  results 
in  the  slaughter  of  one  man  who,  as  principal  or 
ally,  has  had  a  share  in  the  origin  or  in  the  progress 
of  the  war ;  while  the  mass  of  persons  who  perish 
in  the  incidents  of  a  campaign  are  for  the  most  part 
entirely  innocent. 

"  If  the  argument  be  advanced  that  an  assassination 
is  an  action  taken  in  cold  blood,  while  all  the  other 
actions  enumerated  above  are  committed  in  the  heat 
of  battle,  this  consideration  alone  shall  serve  to  prove 
the  error  of  the  argument,  the  consideration  that 


THE   DOCTRINE  STATED  229 

while  the  war  endures  neither  the  blood  nor  the 
indignation  of  either  party  can  ever  be  said  to  have 
run  cold. 

"  I  conclude  therefore  that  for  reasons  of  state  and 
reasons  of  war  it  is  the  prince's  duty  to  aim  ever  at 
the  enfeeblement  and  annihilation  of  his  foe  by  strip- 
ping him,  even  treacherously,  of  his  allies,  as  of  those 
who  form  an  essential  part  of  his  forces. 

"  And  I  affirm  the  second  clause  of  my  thesis,  that 
if  Duke  Ercole  complained  so  bitterly  of  the  plot 
organized  against  him  by  the  Marquis  of  Pescara,  he 
was  complaining  really  not  of  the  conspiracy  but  of 
the  man  who  organized  it.  For  the  conspiracy,  as  a 
wise  and  intelligent  prince  would  know  quite  well, 
was  both  possible  and  legal  for  reasons  of  state.  But 
the  organizer,  as  an  Italian  lord,  and  also  as  a  relation 
to  the  duke,  ought  to  have  behaved  more  chivalrously 
towards  him,  and  so  the  duke  condemned  accidentally 
in  the  person  of  the  marquis  the  iniquity  of  the 
attempt ;  though  he  approved,  on  the  grounds  of 
custom  of  war  and  political  expediency,  the  steps 
taken  to  carry  it  into  execution." 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  political  assassination,  stated 
with  absolute  frankness  by  the  anonymous  author. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  point  out  how,  in  this 
view,  all  action  is  governed  by  expediency ;  how 
justification  is  sought  in  "  rules  of  state,  not  rules  of 
good."  Nor  need  we  pause  to  analyze  the  arguments 
adduced  in  favour  of  political  assassination — the 
argument  of  clemency  to  subjects,  of  a  merciful  ex- 
peditiousness  by  the  destruction  of  the  very  source 
and  fountain  head  of  the  war — all  these  are  set  out 
with  perfect  clearness  and  so  speciously  supported 
that  they  might  well  have  induced  statesmen  to  adopt 
them.  How  thoroughly  they  were  adopted  by  Italian 
princes  the  story  of  Bayard  and  the  Duke  of  Ferrara 
will  serve  to  show.  The  duke  informed  the  chevalier 
that  he  intended  to  poison  the  pope.  Bayard  declared 
that  he  would  never  consent  to  the  murder  of  God's 


230  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

lieutenant  on  earth.  Thereupon  the  duke  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  and,  stamping  on  the  ground,  exclaimed, 
"  By  the  body  of  God,  Monsieur  de  Bayard,  I  should 
like  to  kill  all  my  enemies  just  in  this  way.  How- 
ever, as  you  do  not  approve,  we  will  leave  the  matter 
alone ;  but  unless  God  finds  some  remedy,  both  you 
and  I  will  live  to  repent  it."  We  only  wish  to  point 
out  now  two  general  considerations  upon  the  whole 
sentiment  with  regard  to  political  assassination  as 
displayed  in  the  treatise  of  the  anonymous  author. 
First,  that  the  attitude  of  mind  which  attempted  to 
legitimize  assassination  indicates  a  revolt  of  what 
was  held  to  be  common  sense  against  the  Christian 
idea;  the  common  sense  that  "takes  the  cash  and 
lets  the  credit  go,"  that  cannot  grasp  the  profounder 
doctrine  that  the  whole  world  is  nothing  to  a  man  in 
comparison  with  his  own  soul.  And  in  this  aspect 
it  raises  a  question  that  is  essentially  a  modern 
question,  a  question  which  is  still  waiting  for  its 
answer,  How  far  may  the  ethical  standards  in  the 
individual  and  in  the  state  differ  from  one  another? 
is  there  one  rule  of  conduct  for  nations  and  another 
for  persons ;  or  is  the  ethical  canon  absolute  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places  ?  And  the  second  considera- 
tion— which  also  has  bearings  on  some  open  questions 
of  to-day — is  this,  that  here  we  see  a  rudimentary 
international  law  growing  up  side  by  side  with  the 
new  conditions  of  the  states  of  Europe.  Political 
assassination  is  discussed  as  a  weapon  of  war,  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  spirit  that  the  Geneva  Convention 
discussed  the  use  of  explosive  bullets,  Greek  fire,  or 
the  immunity  of  ambulance  waggons. 

Our  readers  may  possibly  feel  that  we  have  insisted 
too  much  on  the  existence  of  the  doctrine  of  political 
assassination  as  a  formulated,  discussable  proposition 
in  the  ethics  of  nations.  Though  we  admit  a  tendency 
in  those  who  handle  this  subject  to  become  pre- 
occupied by  it,  to  see  assassination  in  every  sudden 
death,  and  poison  in  every  unaccountable  illness ;  yet 


INHERENT  DEFECTS  231 

we  maintain  that  such  documents  as  the  one  we  have 
just  quoted  prove  that  the  question  of  political  assassi- 
nation was  matter  for  study,  for  discussion,  for  pos- 
sible acceptance  as  a  maxim  of  government ;  and  the 
voluminous  pages  of  M.  Lamansky  prove  how  fre- 
quently political  assassination  was  attempted,  not  only 
in  Italy,  but  also  throughout  Europe ;  that  is  to  say, 
they  prove  how  far  the  acceptance  of  these  doctrines 
had  gone. 

The  students  who  turned  their  attention  to  this 
point  in  statecraft,  who  argued  and  formulated  the 
legitimacy  of  political  assassination,  seem  to  us  to 
have  fallen  into  an  error  similar  to  that  which  vitiated 
the  speculations  of  the  earlier  political  economists. 
They  isolated  their  phenomenon  for  purposes  of 
study,  and  then  predicated  its  qualities  and  its  action 
in  isolation  as  its  qualities  and  action  when  free  in 
its  proper  place  in  the  body  politic.  Political  assassi- 
nation, kept  within  bounds,  used  as  philosophers  and 
students  desired  to  see  it  used,  might  possibly  com- 
mend itself  to  the  common-sense  of  statesmen.  But 
assassination  let  loose  upon  the  state  is  quite  another 
matter.  And  this  consideration  leads  us  to  observe 
one  or  two  points  of  weakness  inherent  in  the  doctrine 
which,  in  part  at  least,  accounts  for  its  failure  to  take 
a  permanent  place  among  the  maxims  of  government. 
And  first,  the  whole  proposition  was  lawless  and 
immoral ;  lawless  and  immoral  because  it  was  not  in 
the  main  current  of  development,  in  the  destined 
order  of  growth ;  because  it  was  a  violation  of  con- 
science. The  conscience  of  Europe  had  been  Chris- 
tianised ;  a  step  had  been  made  towards  the  better 
knowledge  that  love,  not  hatred,  is  the  higher  law  of 
life.  Retreat  from  that  position  was  henceforth  impos- 
sible for  the  conscience  of  European  mankind,  however 
frequently  the  actions  of  men  might  contravene  the 
rule  that  it  implied.  The  idea  of  political  assassination 
and  all  its  many  kindred  ideas  belong  to  a  transient 
period  of  development,  one  of  the  backward  sweeps  in 


232 

the  spiral  of  human  progress,  the  mood  of  negation, 
the  epoch  of  revolt  against  the  unpractical  Christian 
idea — a  revolt  which  was  destined  to  fortify,  con- 
solidate, and  permanently  enthrone  that  idea  in  the 
mind  of  man.  This  is,  of  course,  judgment  after  the 
event.  The  men  who  formulated  political  assassina- 
tion doubtless  believed  that  they  were  assisting  the 
development  of  human  intelligence,  that  they  were 
placing  in  the  hands  of  princes  a  weapon  which  would 
permanently  enrich  the  armoury  of  states.  If  they 
had  succeeded  in  establishing  the  maxims  of  political 
assassination,  we  should  have  had  nothing  to  say. 
But  they  did  not  succeed.  No  doubt  to  practical 
politicians  these  unlawful  and  immoral  means  appeared 
to  be  a  short  and  easy  method  for  cutting  the  knot 
of  many  a  difficult  situation,  provided  always  that 
they  could  be  kept  under  control  and  applied  only  to 
that  purpose  which  seemed  to  justify  their  adoption, 
the  welfare  of  the  state.  But  that  was  a  proviso 
which  could  never  be  observed.  It  is  impossible  to 
ring-fence,  to  hermetically  seal  up  the  unlawful  and 
immoral  element  in  a  state.  The  most  successful 
attempt  to  do  so  was  made  by  Venice  when  she 
constructed  the  Council  of  Ten,  endowed  it  with 
unlimited  powers,  and  secured  its  irresponsibility  by 
enveloping  it  in  secrecy.  But  the  virus  cannot  be 
confined  to  one  part  of  the  social  structure.  If  it  is 
present  anywhere  it  will  inevitably  spread,  and  sooner 
or  later  it  will  infect  the  whole  body  politic.  The 
conscious  and  deliberate  introduction  of  those  false 
doctrines  of  statecraft  is  the  first  step  towards  anarchy, 
beginning  with  the  corruption  of  the  prince.  The 
sovereign  who  has  learrted  that  all  is  lawful  to  him 
as  guardian  of  the  public  weal,  as  sovereign,  will  soon 
slip  into  the  easy  and  consolatory  belief  that  all  is 
lawful  to  him  as  an  individual  man.  The  people  will 
argue  that  what  is  lawful  to  one  man  as  man  is  lawful 
to  all  men  as  men.  Hence  a  collision  between  prince 
and  people.  The  prince  arrives  at  the  maxim,  "  L'etat 


THE  DOCTRINE  IN  VENICE  233 

c'est  moi " ;  he  expands  himself  to  the  absorption  oi 
his  state  in  his  own  personal  and  private  individu- 
ality ;  the  people  arrive  at  the  maxim  of  their  own 
sovereignty ;  they  expand  the  idea  of  themselves  till 
it  absorbs  the  governing  powers  ;  there  is  a  confusion 
between  the  ruler  and  the  ruled ;  the  outlines  of  the 
state  are  broken  down,  and  revolution  ensues. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  the  question  of  political 
assassination  in  its  abstract  form,  considering  it 
generally  in  its  widest  applications.  We  may  turn 
now  to  the  special  cases  before  us.  Venice  has 
furnished  us  with  the  material  for  the  foregoing 
remarks,  and  the  archives  of  the  Republic  are  pecu- 
liarly fitted  to  do  this.  Venice,  as  a  state,  enjoyed 
a  singularly  long  life,  free  from  internal  revolutions 
which  have  so  often  wrought  havoc  among  the  state 
records  of  other  nations.  The  rigidity  of  her  con- 
stitution gave  continuity  to  her  policy ;  her  state 
papers  were  carefully  preserved,  as  indicating  the 
lines  upon  which  that  policy  must  move.  Finally,  the 
Republic  is  dead ;  "  the  doge  does  not  figure  in  the 
Almanack  de  Gotha " ;  the  archives  are  open  to  us ; 
there  is  no  state  susceptibility  to  wound.  The  works 
of  de  Mas  Latrie  and  Lamansky  may  be  regarded  as 
the  voluminous  pleadings  in  the  case  of  the  World 
versus  Venice.  As  M.  de  Mas  Latrie  says  :  "  C'est 
Venise  elle-m6me  qui  parle  et  qui  depose  dans  sa 
propre  cause."  M.  de  Mas  Latrie  and  M.  Lamansky 
are  for  the  plaintiffs,  and  Signer  Fulin  for  the  defence. 
The  indictment  is  portentous,  and  if  judgment  is  to  be 
given  in  accordance  with  the  maxims  of  to-day,  the 
case  must  go  against  Venice.  It  is  too  late  to  plead 
denial  of  the  facts  ;  the  mass  of  facts  is  overwhelming ; 
that  plea  has  been  killed  by  Daru's  sinister  epigram, 
"  Quand  on  ne  veut  pas  etre  accus6  d'empoisonnement, 
il  est  facheux  d'etre  aussi  bien  servi  par  la  fortune." 
We  would  rather  plead  justification  on  the  ground  of 
custom  of  the  time  and  on  the  ground  of  necessity. 
It  is  abundantly  evident  from  these  documents  that 


234  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

Venice  never  had  any  great  belief  in  the  weapon  of 
political  assassination.  She  adopted  it  only  when 
hard  pressed  and  under  stringent  necessity,  and  as  a 
concurrent  means  of  escape  from  her  difficulties,  not 
as  the  sole  means.  The  adoption  of  these  means  at 
all  is,  indeed,  the  result  and  the  proof  of  her  weakness. 
Wherever  they  are  discussed  by  the  Ten  we  shall 
find,  if  we  look  abroad,  that  the  Republic  was  at 
that  moment  in  grave  danger  from  her  foreign  enemies. 
The  documents  in  question  belong  to  the  archives  of 
the  Council  of  Ten,  or  of  its  commission,  the  Three 
Inquisitors  of  State.  It  was  natural  that  such  delicate 
matters  should  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  most 
powerful  body  in  Venice,  especially  as  secrecy  was 
essential,  and  absolute  secrecy  could  be  obtained  only 
in  the  Secreta  Secretissima  of  the  Ten. 

The  revelations  contained  in  these  papers  are 
startling.  The  first  section  alone  of  M.  Lamansky's 
book  cites  ninety-one  different  proposals  to  make  use 
of  assassination.  His  papers  range  from  the  year 
1415  to  1768,  and  show  us  attempts  on  the  lives  of 
the  following,  among  other  distinguished  persons : 
The  Emperor  Sigismund,  Matthias  Corvinus,  Marsilio 
Carrara,  Filippo  Maria  Visconti,  Francesco  Sforza,  the 
Sultan,  Charles  VIII.  of  France,  Pope  Pius  IV.,  and 
Etienne  le  Petit,  the  false  Czar  Peter  III.  It  would 
be  impossible  and  unprofitable  for  us  to  analyse  all 
the  cases  collected  by  M.  Lamansky  and  Signer  Fulin. 
We  shall  content  ourselves  with  taking  four  or  five 
typical  cases,  which  will  sufficiently  demonstrate  the 
method  and  the  action  of  the  Republic  in  the  whole  of 
this  matter. 

Although  the  Council  of  Ten  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  using  poisons,  and  even  of  keeping  a  professional 
poisoner  in  their  employ  for  many  years  previously, 
the  first  general  order  on  the  subject  is  dated  October 
17,  1509,  and  runs  thus  : 

"  By  the  authority  of  this  Council  be  it  decreed 
that  the  chiefs  of  the  Council  be  charged  to  inform 


THE   DOCTRINE   IN   VENICE  235 

themselves  in  the  most  cautious  and  secret  manner 
possible  as  to  the  ways  and  means  by  which  we  can 
put  to  death,  through  poison  or  otherwise,  certain 
bitter  and  implacable  enemies  of  our  state." 

But  earlier  than  this  date  we  find  the  Council  of 
Ten  receiving  tenders  for  assassination,  and  con- 
tracting for  the  removal  of  their  foes.  Among  the 
tenders  received  and  discussed  by  the  Council,  two 
are  remarkable  for  their  frankness,  and  will  serve  us 
as  specimens  of  this  kind  of  proposal.  One  is  the 
offer  made  by  Biagio  Catena,  styled  by  the  Council 
Archbishop  of  Trebizond  ;  the  other  is  the  tariff  pre- 
sented by  Era  John  of  Ragusa,  both  of  the  candidates 
for  employment  being  clerics.  The  document  relating 
to  the  offer  of  Catena  runs  thus  : 

"  1419,  13  September. — Ser  Johannes  Diedo,  Ser 
Rugerius  Ruzzini,  Presidents  of  the  Ten,  moving.  On 
the  i /th  of  June  last  the  Council  passed  a  resolution 
that  the  Archbishop  of  Trebizond,  who  offers  to  place 
in  our  hands,  absolutely  and  under  no  safe-conduct, 
John  Brendola,  of  Este,  and  John  Barberius,  of  Padua, 
accused  of  having  set  fire  to  our  Church  of  St.  Mark, 
should,  upon  the  actual  fulfilment  of  his  offer,  be  freed 
from  the  outlawry  under  which  he  now  lies.  The 
said  archbishop  came  to  Venice  in  person,  and  stated 
and  promised  again  that  he  would  shortly  bring  the 
said  criminals  to  Venetian  territory,  but  added  that  he 
required  letters  patent  to  enable  him  to  arrest  those 
men,  for  otherwise  none  of  our  rectors  or  officials 
would  give  him  credence.  Be  it  now  moved  that  such 
letters  patent  be  granted  to  the  said  archbishop." 

The  letters  were  granted,  requiring  all  officials  to 
give  every  assistance  to  the  archbishop  in  the  execution 
of  his  police  duties.  On  the  same  day  all  three  Pre- 
sidents of  the  Ten  moved  that — 

"  Inasmuch  as  the  said  archbishop  offers  to  poison 
Marsilio  de  Carrara  by  means  of  Francesco  Pierlam- 
berti,  of  Lucca,  and  wishes  to  travel  in  person  with 
the  said  Francesco,  that  he  may  assure  himself  of  the 


236  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

actual  execution  of  the  deed ;  but  for  this  purpose  he 
requires  a  poison,  which  he  charges  himself  to  have 
made  by  a  capable  poison  master  if  the  money  be 
supplied  him ;  and,  further,  inasmuch  as  the  said 
archbishop,  from  Easter  last  to  the  present  time,  has, 
out  of  his  own  pocket,  been  paying  the  inn  charges  of 
the  said  John  of  Este,  John  Barberio,  and  Baldassere 
de  Odoni,  who  is  now  in  prison  in  Ferrara,  following 
them  all  over  the  place  in  order  to  carry  out  his  intent, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  says  he  has  spent  one 
hundred  and  eighty  ducats  of  his  own  money.  Be  it 
resolved,  that  for  making  the  poison,  for  necessary 
expenses,  and  for  buying  a  horse  for  the  said  arch- 
bishop— for  his  own  is  dead — the  sum  of  fifty  ducats 
out  of  our  treasury  be  given  to  the  archbishop  and 
his  companion  Francesco  Pierlamberti.  Ayes,  10 ; 
noes,  5  ;  doubtful,  i." 

The  tariff  of  Brother  John  of  Ragusa  is  a  document 
even  more  ingenious  than  the  tender  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Trebizond.  It  runs  thus  : 

"  On  the  nth  December,  1513,  the  said  Brother  John 
of  Ragusa  presented  himself  to  the  Presidents  of  the 
Ten,  and  declared  that  he  would  work  wonders  in 
killing  any  one  they  chose  by  certain  means  of  his 
own  invention,  and  therefore  begs  :  First,  that  on  the 
success  of  his  experiment  he  shall  receive  one  thou- 
sand five  hundred  ducats  a  year  for  life ;  secondly, 
that  if  the  noble  lords  wish  him  to  operate  on  any  one 
else,  the  annuity  shall  be  raised  in  a  sum  to  be  agreed 
upon." 

The  Council  accepted  Brother  John's  offer,  and 
"enjoined  him  to  go  and  make  his  first  experiment 
upon  the  person  of  the  Emperor."  Emboldened  by 
this  first  successful  appeal,  Brother  John  then  pre- 
sented the  following  scale  of  prices  : 

"  For  the  Grand  Turk,  500  ducats ;  for  the  King  of 
Spain  (exclusive  of  travelling  expenses),  150  ducats  ; 
for  the  Duke  of  Milan,  60  ducats ;  for  the  Marquis  of 
Mantua,  50  ducats;  for  his  Holiness,  only  100  ducats. 


237 

As  a  rule,"  he  concludes,  "  the  longer  the  journey  and 
the  more  valuable  the  life,  the  higher  would  be  the 
price." 

The  quality  and  the  number  of  these  men  who  were 
found  to  offer  themselves  to  the  Council  of  Ten  upon 
such  wild  ventures  call  for  our  attention.  They 
were,  as  a  rule,  the  very  scum  of  society;  criminals 
who  swarmed  in  the  narrow  streets  of  Venice,  and 
earned  a  livelihood  by  all  disgraceful  means.  Their 
number  was  constantly  augmented  by  the  pernicious 
action  of  the  "  bando,"  or  outlawry,  combined  with  the 
weakness  of  the  Venetian  police.  To  prove  how  weak 
the  police  were,  we  have  only  to  remember  the  diffi- 
culty they  found  in  putting  a  stop  to  the  riotous  sport 
of  the  young  nobles,  whose  delight  it  was  to  fasten  a 
chain  to  the  collar  of  a  large  dog  and  run  with  him  full 
speed  down  the  narrow  calles ;  the  dog,  of  course,  kept 
to  one  side,  and  his  master  to  the  other,  and  most  of 
the  passers-by  were  laid  in  the  mud.  Or  we  may  cite 
that  curious  story  of  Francesco  Concha,  chief  inspector 
of  the  police  magistrates,  known  as  the  Signori  di  Notte. 
Concha  had  under  his  charge  two  brothers  condemned 
to  be  hanged  for  theft.  For  one  of  these  brothers 
Concha  conceived  a  strong  friendship.  On  the  day  of 
their  execution  in  the  piazzetta,  after  the  first  brother 
had  been  hanged,  and  when  the  noose  was  round  the 
neck  of  the  other,  Concha,  head  of  the  guard  whose 
duty  it  was  to  see  the  sentence  carried  out,  walked 
up  the  steps  of  the  scaffold,  took  the  noose  off  his 
friend's  neck,  and  saying,  "Tu  vedrai  adesso  se  ti  voglio 
ben,"  led  him  down  into  the  crowd,  and  both  disap- 
peared. Though  the  Council  offered  large  rewards  for 
their  arrest,  they  were  never  captured.  The  police, 
then,  being  so  weak,  and  criminals  being  able  to  escape 
so  easily,  the  only  mode  of  punishing  them  was  by 
outlawry,  with  a  price  on  their  heads.  The  result  was 
that  the  frontiers  of  Venetian  territory  swarmed  with 
criminals,  all  ready  to  purchase  their  rehabilitation  by 
some  service  to  the  state.  They  naturally  offered 


238  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

that  kind  of  service  to  which  they  were  already  ac- 
customed, assassination,  or  some  other  equally  dubious 
undertaking. 

We  come  now  to  the  case  of  one  of  the  most  famous 
of  these  desperadoes  whose  services  the  Council  ol 
Ten  accepted.  It  is  a  typical  case ;  and  though  there 
are  many  others,  one  will  be  enough.  Michelotto 
Mudazzo,  a  Cretan,  first  appears  upon  the  scene  in 
the  year  1414,  when  he  was  condemned  to  a  year's 
imprisonment  for  theft.  Three  years  later  he  was 
able  to  rehabilitate  himself,  and  to  acquire  a  con- 
siderable fortune  by  a  stroke  of  luck.  The  Council 
of  Ten  were  anxious  to  have  in  their  hands  a  certain 
noble,  Giorgio  Bragadin,  accused  of  treason  and  ol 
having  made  and  given  away  a  plan  of  Venice.  The 
Ten  offered  four  thousand  ducats  for  the  person  of 
Bragadin,  dead  or  alive.  Mudazzo  presented  himself 
to  the  Council,  and  declared  that  he  would  be  content 
with  two  thousand  ducats  on  condition  that  that  sum 
should  be  secured  to  his  children  in  case  he  perished 
in  the  venture.  The  Ten  agreed ;  Mudazzo  succeeded 
in  capturing  Bragadin,  who  was  hanged  between  the 
columns  in  the  piazzetta.  Mudazzo  received  his 
reward,  but  he  did  not  enjoy  it  long;  he  had  embarked 
on  the  dangerous  business  of  agent  for  the  Council  of 
Ten,  depositary  of  some  of  their  secrets,  and  therefore 
liable  to  be  either  imprisoned  or  made  away  with  the 
moment  the  Ten  believed  that  they  would  have  no 
further  use  for  him.  The  next  we  hear  of  Mudazzo 
is  that  he  is  in  disgrace  ;  condemned  to  four  months' 
imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  two  hundred  lire  for 
striking  his  adversary  in  open  court,  and  a  year's 
imprisonment,  a  fine  of  two  hundred  lire,  and  per- 
petual banishment  for  suborning  witnesses.  The 
affair  of  Bragadin  had  taught  Mudazzo  how  money 
might  be  drawn  from  the  state ;  and  now  in  his 
banishment  he  began  casting  about  for  similar  means 
of  ingratiating  himself  with  the  Ten,  and  of  earning 
the  revocation  of  his  outlawry.  In  the  year  1419  the 


MICHELOTTO  MUDAZZO  239 

Council  of  Ten  resolved  to  adopt  the  method  of  assas- 
sination against  the  Emperor  Sigismund,  "cum  non 
solum  nostro  dominio  et  toti  mundo  sit  clarissima  et 
manifesta  mala  voluntas  et  dispositio  domini  Regis 
Hungarie."  Mudazzo  offered  at  his  own  cost  to  find 
and  to  murder  the  Emperor.  His  reward  Nwas  to  be 
as  much  land  in  Crete  as  would  give  him  a  yearly 
income  of  one  thousand  ducats.  He  also  received  a 
safe-conduct  to  come  to  Venice,  and  to  stay  there  till 
a  poison  could  be  prepared  for  the  emperor.  The 
Ten  wrote  to  the  Governor  of  Verona,  instructing  him 
to  find  out  certain  people  known  as  "  those  of  the 
poisons,"  "qui  mirifice  conficiunt  venenum,"  who  lived 
at  Puegnago,  a  small  village  belonging  to  Pandolfo 
Malatesta,  near  Said  on  the  Lago  di  Garda;  and  to 
procure  from  them  a  jar  of  their  mixture.  They  also 
sent  to  Padua  to  a  druggist  known  as  Peter  Paul, 
a  famous  poison  brewer,  requiring  him  to  furnish 
"a  drinkable  and  an  eatable  poison."  Peter  Paul  was 
absent  from  Padua,  and  the  governor,  seeking  about 
for  some  one  else  to  carry  out  his  commission,  applied 
to  Master  John,  doctor  in  Vicenza;  another  famous 
poison  maker,  Michele  del  Nievo,  received  a  similar 
order.  In  February,  1420,  the  powder  and  the  liquid, 
the  eatable  and  the  drinkable  poison,  arrived  from 
Vicenza,  and  were  deposited  in  the  chamber  of  the 
Council.  The  Presidents  of  the  Ten  sent  for  Mudazzo, 
and  desired  him  to  experiment  with  the  powder  and 
the  liquid  in  their  presence.  Mudazzo  refused  to 
touch  the  poisons  unless  their  concocter  were  present. 
Thereupon  the  Ten,  in  dread  lest  the  affair  had  been 
hanging  on  too  long  and  would  take  wind,  dismissed 
Mudazzo,  and  reinforced  his  "  bando "  against  him. 
But  Mudazzo  did  not  despair;  he  waited  his  time, 
and  ten  years  later  he  reappears  before  the  Ten  with 
a  proposal  to  murder  Filippo  Maria  Visconti,  Duke  of 
Milan.  The  Vicenza  poisons  had  been  lying  all  this 
time  in  the  cupboard  of  the  Ten.  Their  efficacy  had 
never  been  tested,  and  the  Council  now  ordered  an 


24o  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

experiment  to  be  made  with  them  upon  two  pigs. 
The  pigs  did  not  die.  The  Ten  sent  for  Mudazzo 
and  ordered  him  to  procure  fresh  and  better  poisons. 
He  declined,  and  the  Presidents  of  the  Council  took 
steps  to  have  a  new  supply  sent  from  Vicenza.  But 
in  the  meanwhile  Mudazzo  could  not  keep  his  secret 
from  his  friends.  He  told  his  "compare,"  Matteo 
Bevilaqua,  of  the  commission  he  had  received,  and 
of  the  fortune  it  would  bring  him ;  Bevilaqua  told  his 
son-in-law  Pegolotto ;  and  Pegolotto  told  his  friend 
John  de  Casanis,  who  wrote  an  account  of  the  whole 
to  the  Duke  of  Milan.  Mudazzo,  instead  of  going  to 
Milan,  was  sent  off  a  ^w«5/-prisoner  to  Corfu,  and  we 
do  not  know  that  he  ever  saw  Venice  again.  The  last 
we  hear  of  him  is  a  wild  offer  which  he  makes  to  sell 
to  the  Ten  a  poison  which  will  work  in  three  ways,  in 
food,  in  drink,  or  by  touch — an  offer  which  the  Council 
rejected  by  a  large  majority.  They  were  weary  of 
Mudazzo  and  his  futile  promises.1 

In  this  story  of  Mudazzo  the  Ten  explain  their  own 
procedure  with  perfect  frankness — a  frankness  engen- 
dered by  their  reliance  on  the  absolute  secrecy  of  their 
archives.  It  was  necessary  to  state  exactly  how  they 
had  acted  in  the  matter,  in  order  to  put  future 
councillors  in  full  possession  of  the  facts.  We 
gain  by  this  frankness,  and  have  before  us  a  com- 
plete and  typical  case.  The  attitude  of  the  Ten  is 
perfectly  clear ;  they  were  under  great  pressure,  and 
adopted  the  proposals  to  assassinate  as  a  possible, 
though  not  as  the  sole  or  even  probable  means  of 
freeing  themselves  from  their  difficulties.  To  have 
rejected  such  means  would  have  seemed  to  them 
culpable  folly  and  neglect.  The  futility  and  in- 
effectiveness of  the  plans  are  characteristic  of  the 
majority  of  the  proposals  made  to  the  Ten  and 
sanctioned  by  them. 

The  next  case  we  shall  take  is  that  of  a  wholesale 
attempt  to  destroy  the  Turkish  army.  The  attempt 

1  See  Lamansky,  op.  cit.  pp.  5-7,  and  Cibrario,  op.  cit.  pp.  70-2. 


MICHIEL  ANGELO  SALAMON          241 

was  impotent,  like  most  of  its  predecessors ;  but  the 
details  are  so  strange  and  picturesque,  and  throw  so 
much  light  on  the  more  famous  case  of  the  Untori 
of  Milan,  that  we  shall  give  the  history  of  it  at  some 
length.  In  the  year  1649  Lunardo  Foscolo,  Provvedi- 
tore  Generale  di  Dalmazia,  writes  from  Zara  to  the 
Inquisitors  of  State,  as  follows : 

"  To  the  most  illustrious  and  most  honoured  lords, 
my  masters. 

"  My  incessant  occupation  in  the  discharge  of  this 
most  laborious  service  never  makes  me  forget  my 
intent  and  desire  to  procure  advantage  to  my  country. 
I  then,  considering  the  perilous  state  of  the  kingdom 
of  Candia,  first  treacherously  invaded,  and  now  openly 
occupied  by  the  Turks,  the  pre-eminence  of  their 
forces,  the  copiousness  of  their  soldiery,  the  opulence 
of  the  Turkish  treasury,  which  will  enable  them  to 
maintain  the  war  for  many  years,  and  also  being  well 
aware  that,  although  the  public  spirit  of  Venice  yields 
to  none  in  courage  and  magnanimity,  the  Republic  has 
neither  forces,  men,  nor  money,  wherewith  to  resist 
much  longer  the  attacks  of  its  foes,  and  reflecting  on 
the  impossibility  to  meet  such  a  heavy  expenditure, 
have  applied  myself  to  a  study  of  the  methods 
whereby  the  Turkish  power  might  be  overcome  with- 
out risk  of  men  or  burden  to  the  exchequer,  and  how 
the  kingdom  of  Candia  might  be  recovered ;  for,  after 
God,  our  hope  to  reacquire  it  is  small  indeed. 

"  Now  there  is  here  a  good  subject  of  Venice,  lately 
appointed  doctor,  who  besides  his  skill  in  healing  is 
also  a  famous  distiller.  His  name  is  Michiel  Angelo 
Salamon.  He  is  desirous  to  prove  himself,  what  he 
is  in  fact,  a  faithful  servant  of  your  excellencies.  I 
explained  my  wishes  to  him,  and  he  availed  himself 
of  the  presence  here  of  the  plague  to  distil  a  liquid 
expressed  from  the  spleen,  the  buboes,  and  carbuncles 
of  the  plague-stricken;  and  this,  when  mixed  with 
other  ingredients,  will  have  the  power  wherever  it  is 
scattered  to  slay  any  number  of  persons,  for  it  is  the 

VOL.  i.  1 6 


242  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

quintessence  of  plague.  I  considered  that  if  this 
quintessence  of  plague  were  sown  in  the  enemies' 
camps  at  Retimo,  Cannea,  and  San  Todero,  and  if  it 
operates  as  Dr.  Michiel  assures  me  it  will,  this  would 
greatly  assist  us  to  recover  the  kingdom  of  Candia. 
I  accordingly  determined  not  to  lose  the  opportunity 
to  have  a  vase  of  the  poison  prepared,  and  this  jar 
shall  be  kept,  with  all  due  precautions,  for  the  service 
of  your  excellencies.  I  believe,  however,  that  some 
ruse  must  be  adopted  to  entice  the  Turks  into  the 
trap,  and  would  suggest  that  we  should  make  use  of 
the  Albanian  fez,  or  some  other  cloth  goods,  which 
the  Turks  are  accustomed  to  buy,  so  that  the  poison 
may  pass  through  as  many  hands  in  as  short  a  time 
as  possible.  The  cloth  should  be  made  up  in  parcels 
as  if  for  sale,  after  having  been  painted  over  with  the 
quintessence,  and  then  placed  in  separate  boxes 
destined  for  the  various  places  where  we  desire  to 
sow  the  poison.  The  quintessence,  well  secured  in 
several  cases  for  the  greater  safety  of  those  who  have 
to  handle  and  transport  it,  should  be  sent  to  the 
commander-in-chief  that  he  may  take  the  necessary 
steps  for  causing  it  to  pass  into  the  enemies'  hands. 
This  may  be  done  either  by  lading  several  vessels 
with  the  cloth,  which  vessels  are  to  be  abandoned  by 
their  crews  when  the  enemy  comes  in  sight ;  or  else 
by  means  of  pedlars  who  shall  hawk  the  cloth  about 
the  country;  so  that  the  enemy,  hoping  to  make 
booty,  may  gain  the  plague  and  find  death.  The 
affair  must  be  managed  with  all  circumspection,  and 
the  operator  must  be  induced  to  his  work  by  hopes 
of  gain  and  by  promises,  for  it  will  be  a  dangerous 
undertaking,  and  when  the  operation  is  over  he  must 
go  through  a  rigorous  quarantine.  While  handling 
the  quintessence,  it  will  be  of  use  to  the  operator  to 
stuff  his  nose  and  mouth  with  sponges  soaked  in 
vinegar ;  and  while  poisoning  the  cloth  he  may  fasten 
the  brush  to  an  iron  rod,  and  when  finished  he  must 
put  brush  and  rod  into  the  fire.  Having  given  the 


THE  QUINTESSENCE  OF  PLAGUE      243 

Turk  the  plague,  every  care  must  be  taken  to  prevent 
our  people  coming  in  contact  with  them. 

"  The  proposition  is  a  virtuous  one,  and  worthy  of 
the  composer  of  the  quintessence.  It  is,  however, 
a  violent  course,  unusual,  and  perhaps  not  admitted 
by  public  morality.  But  desperate  cases  call  for 
violent  remedies,  and  in  the  case  of  the  Turk,  enemies 
by  faith,  treacherous  by  nature,  who  have  always 
betrayed  your  excellencies,  in  my  humble  opinion  the 
ordinary  considerations  have  no  weight." 

To  this  letter  the  Presidents  of  the  Ten  reply  that 
Foscolo's  letter  to  the  Inquisitors  has  been  submitted 
to  them.  They  thank  the  provveditore,  and  are  of 
opinion  that  the  doctor  who  invented  the  quintessence 
should  be  the  person  who  is  appointed  to  take  the  jar 
to  the  commander-in-chief.  His  travelling  expenses 
are  to  be  paid,  and  the  commander-in-chief  must  be 
warned  of  the  great  risk  to  his  own  troops  from  the 
presence  of  the  jar  among  them.  Dr.  Salamon,  how- 
ever, showed  great  unwillingness  to  sail  along  with 
his  jar.  The  Ten  insisted ;  at  the  same  time  making 
ample  provision  for  Salamon  and  his  whole  family, 
and  enclosing  a  supply  of  poisons  for  his  use. 
They  further  insist  that  the  cloth  goods  are  to  be 
poisoned  on  board  the  fleet,  and  not  at  Zara ;  and  if 
Salamon  absolutely  refuses  to  go,  Foscolo  is  to  take 
the  jar  and  see  that  it  is  broken,  and  its  contents 
emptied  into  the  sea.  Foscolo  succeeded  in  over- 
coming Salamon's  objections,  and  in  due  time  the 
doctor  and  his  jar  of  quintessence  reached  the  fleet. 
He  found  the  commander  just  going  into  winter 
quarters,  and  unable  to  make  use  of  the  mixture  at 
once.  Moreover,  the  commander  declined  to  keep 
the  jar  with  him  all  winter  till  next  spring ;  so  Dr. 
Salamon  and  his  quintessence  were  once  more  shipped 
on  board  and  returned  to  Zara,  where,  to  make  sure 
of  him  and  his  mixture,  both  were  placed  in  prison. 
Next  year  Foscolo  was  appointed  to  the  command  of 
the  fleet,  and  immediately  asked  that  Salamon  might 


244  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

be  sent  to  him  in  Candia,  as  he  desired  to  try  the 
effect  of  the  mixture  which  he  had  so  strongly  recom- 
mended to  the  Ten.  The  doctor  and  his  jar  were 
taken  out  of  prison  and  despatched  to  Foscolo,  but 
not  before  two  hundred  ducats  had  been  exacted  from 
him  as  caution  money.  And  here  the  story  suddenly 
ends.  We  do  not  know  what  became  of  Dr.  Salamon, 
or  whether  Foscolo  found  any  opportunity  of  trying 
his  favourite  quintessence  of  plague ;  probably  not, 
or  his  period  of  command  was  signalised  by  no  very 
brilliant  successes. 

The  archives  of  Venice  throw  light  upon  many 
obscure  passages  in  the  history  of  other  nations. 
Some  of  the  most  curious  documents  are  those  which 
relate  to  the  various  attempts  on  the  lives  of  the  popes. 

There  is  a  valuable  series  of  documents  relating  to 
the  deaths  of  Popes  Alexander  VI.  and  Leo  X.,  both 
attributed  at  the  time  to  poison,  and  both  still  open 
questions  to-day.  The  story  of  the  death  of  Alex- 
ander is  so  well  known  that  it  is  only  necessary  to 
recapitulate  it  briefly  here  in  order  to  see  how  far  the 
facts  bear  out  the  generally  accepted  theory  that  he 
was  poisoned.  Ranke,  in  the  Appendix  to  his  History 
of  the  Popes,  quotes  at  length  the  document  from 
Sanudo's  Diaries,  upon  which  he  bases  his  version  of 
the  story.  On  April  n,  1503,  Alexander  had  poisoned 
the  Venetian  Cardinal  Giovanni  Michiel,  in  order  to 
become  possessed  of  his  great  wealth,  and  before 
daybreak  on  the  same  day  the  cardinal's  house  had 
been  swept  of  its  treasures,  and  everything  carried 
to  the  Vatican.  When  the  Venetian  ambassador  pre- 
sented himself  a  little  later  at  the  palace,  he  "found 
all  the  doors  shut,  and  his  Holiness  occupied  in 
counting  the  gold."  This  deed  struck  terror  into  all 
the  other  cardinals  whose  wealth  exposed  them  to 
the  cupidity  of  the  pope.  Among  the  wealthiest  of 
these  was  Adrian  Castellesi,  of  Corneto,  Bishop 
of  Bath  and  Wells.  Accordingly,  when  Castellesi 
received  a  message  from  the  pope  that  his  Holiness 


ALEXANDER  VI.  245 

and  the  Duke  of  Valentino  desired  to  sup  with  him 
in  a  vineyard  of  his  on  August  12,  he  at  once  sus- 
pected their  intention  to  poison  him.  He  bought 
the  pope's  butler,  by  a  present  of  ten  thousand  ducats, 
to  tell  him  which  of  the  boxes  of  comfits  to  be  served 
at  dessert  had  been  poisoned.  The  pope  and  Valen- 
tino arrived.  The  cardinal  threw  himself  at  the  pope's 
feet  and  declared  that  he  would  not  rise  until  his 
Holiness  had  promised  to  grant  him  his  request. 
Alexander,  impatient  at  the  scene,  and  trusting  abso- 
lutely to  his  butler's  fidelity,  consented.  Then  Castel- 
lesi  begged  leave  to  wait  upon  his  Holiness  with  his 
own  hands.  When  dessert  arrived,  the  butler  handed 
Castellesi  the  poisoned  box,  and  the  cardinal — as  was 
the  duty  and  custom  for  servants  in  those  dangerous 
times— first  tasted  the  confetti,  but,  by  a  juggle,  slipped 
an  unpoisoned  piece  into  bis  mouth,  and  then  placed 
the  poisoned  box  before  the  pope.  Alexander  having 
seen  Castellesi  try  the  box,  as  he  thought,  ate  freely 
of  the  confectionery,  went  home,  was  taken  ill,  and 
in  six  days  died,  a  swollen  and  horrible  mass  of 
corruption.  Valentino  also  fell  seriously  ill,  and  was 
in  danger  of  his  life  for  many  days;  and  Cardinal 
Castellesi,  trusting  no  one,  not  even  himself,  when 
his  guests  were  gone  took  such  violent  emetics  that 
he,  too,  nearly  succumbed.  Such  is  the  account  of 
the  death  of  Alexander  ordinarily  received.  The 
story,  however,  offers  one  serious  difficulty.  There 
were  three  boxes  of  confetti ;  only  one  of  these  was 
poisoned,  and  the  pope  ate  that  How  are  we  to 
account  for  the  nearly  mortal  sickness  of  Valentino  ? 
On  the  whole,  though,  we  shall  probably  never  know 
the  truth  of  that  strange  supper  party  in  the  Roman 
vineyard,  when  the  Borgia's  hopes  and  schemes  were 
wrecked  for  ever.  We  are  inclined  to  accept  the 
opinion  of  the  Venetian  ambassador,  based  on  the 
professional  statement  of  Dr.  Scipio,  that  the  death 
of  the  pope  and  the  illness  of  the  duke  were  due  to 
natural  causes. 


246  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

The  same  suspicion  of  poison  surrounds  the  death 
of  Leo  X.  We  shall  dwell  upon  the  story  at  some 
length  because  Roscoe  clearly  had  not  access  to  the 
documents  which  M.  Lamansky  has  placed  before  us. 
The  pope  was  at  his  villa  of  Magliana,  near  Rome, 
when,  on  November  24,  1521,  news  reached  him 
that  the  imperial  troops  had  entered  Milan,  and  that 
the  success  of  his  league,  concluded  with  the 
emperor  at  Worms,  was  secured.  The  pope  was 
overjoyed  at  the  news,  and  the  Swiss  guard,  who 
were  in  attendance,  began  to  light  bonfires,  discharge 
their  guns,  sing  songs,  and  generally  to  celebrate  the 
victory.  At  the  hour  for  going  to  bed  the  pope 
sent  down  orders  that  the  noise  must  stop.  But  it 
was  found  impossible  to  quiet  the  men,  and  his  Holi- 
ness was  unable  to  sleep  all  that  night.  Next 
morning  the  pope  signified  his  intention  of  returning 
to  Rome  that  afternoon.  To  pass  the  time  till  the 
hour  of  departure,  he  amused  himself  in  a  rabbit- 
warren,  where  he  sat  for  long  enjoying  the  brilliant 
sunshine.  Thus  warmed  through  and  through,  he 
set  out  for  Rome.  As  the  sun  set,  his  Holiness  felt 
chilly,  and  all  the  more  so  as  he  had  only  summer 
garments  with  him.  Nevertheless  he  entered  Rome 
in  excellent  spirits,  supped,  and  slept  soundly.  Next 
day  at  audience  time  he  was  attacked  by  fever,  and 
he  died  on  Sunday,  December  i.  "  He  died  as  red 
as  a  poppy,  and  therefore  they  said  he  was  poisoned."1 
Even  before  he  closed  his  eyes  his  bedchamber  was 
sacked  by  his  servants.  And  then  began  in  Rome 
the  usual  scenes  that  followed  a  pope's  death :  artil- 
lery mounted  on  Saint  Angelo's  castle  and  pointed 
on  the  city ;  the  cardinals  barricaded  and  fortified 
each  in  his  own  palace ;  the  shops  all  shut ;  every- 

1  We  take  this  to  be  the  meaning  of  "  morse  come  un  papavero,  et 
per  quello  se  h  poi  detto,  fu  avenenato."  Ranke's  translator  gives  us 
"  as  fadeth  the  poppy  "  ;  but  we  believe  our  interpretation  to  be  the 
right  one,  especially  when  supported  by  what  follows,  "  et  vidili  el 
volto  negro,  come  paonaxo  scuro,  che  era  segno  di  veneno." 


LEO  X.  247 

one  armed ;  the  streets  filled  with  the  "  drums  and 
tramplings  "  of  the  rival  factions ;  the  Jews'  quarter 
sacked ;  and  a  bishop  and  a  courtesan  shot  in  the 
street.  Meanwhile,  on  December  2,  the  pope's  body 
was  laid  out  in  a  lower  chamber  of  the  Vatican  ; 
he  was  dressed  in  his  episcopal  robes,  and  four 
torches  were  placed  at  the  corners  of  the  bier,  which 
was  guarded  by  twenty  cardinals  clad  in  purple 
mourning.  The  people  were  admitted  to  kiss  his 
Holiness's  feet.  Next  day  the  pope's  body  lay  in 
state  in  St.  Peter's,  in  the  chapel  of  Pope  Sixtus, 
and  all  Rome  flocked  to  see  it.  After  the  great 
doors  of  the  basilica  had  been  closed  in  the  evening 
by  order  of  the  college,  on  the  suggestion  of  Paris 
de  Grassis,  the  pope's  chamberlain,  an  autopsy  was 
held  upon  the  body.  "  The  body  was  found  to  be 
of  a  dark  purple  colour,  which  was  taken  as  a  sign  of 
poison.  The  corpse  was  stripped  in  the  presence  of 
the  four  doctors  and  stretched  out  as  they  quarter 
malefactors.  When  opened,  traces  of  poison  were 
discovered,  and  the  doctors  gave  it  as  their  opinion 
that  he  died  therefrom.  The  body  was  dressed  again 
by  my  brother  and  placed  in  its  coffin,  with  four 
bricks  under  its  head ;  it  was  then  walled  into  the 
tomb  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  of  Pope  Innocent." 
Another  authority,  however,  the  letter  of  Jerome 
Bon,  quoted  by  Ranke,  throws  some  doubt  on  the 
unanimity  of  opinion  among  the  doctors.  "  It  is  not 
known  for  certain,"  he  says,  "  whether  the  pope 
died  of  poison  or  not.  He  was  opened.  Master 
Ferando  says  he  was  poisoned ;  others  thought  not ; 
of  this  opinion  is  Master  Severnio,  who  saw  him 
opened,  and  says  he  was  not  poisoned."  We  must 
remember,  however,  that  Signor  Bon  had  not  the 
advantage  of  being  present  at  the  autopsy  in  St. 
Peter's  as  had  the  anonymous  author  whom  we 
quoted.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  pope  was 
poisoned  by  his  butler,  Bernabo  Malaspina.  Paulus 
Jovius  declares  that  he  must  have  died  "alicujus  nobilis 


248  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

veneni  saevitia " ;  and  finally  Leo's  chamberlain,  who 
may  possibly  have  been  the  brother  of  our  anony- 
mous letter-writer,  and  was  in  all  probability  present 
at  the  autopsy,  tells  us  that  "  the  doctors  gave  it  for 
certain  that  he  died  poisoned." 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  quote,  in  conclusion,  a 
curious  document,  the  offer  made  by  Celio  Malaspina 
to  the  Council  of  Ten.  The  offer  was  rejected,  it 
is  true,  but  it  casts  a  strange  light  on  the  childlike 
ingenuousness  of  the  men  who  made  such  vast 
proposals  with  so  little  prospect  of  accomplishing 
them. 

"  SERENE  PRINCE,  ILLUSTRIOUS  LORDS, — 

"  Your  faithful  servant,  Celio  Malaspina,  says 
that,  in  his  youth  having  served  many  princes,  and 
made  the  wars  with  them,  he  has  always  observed  that 
they  courted,  honoured,  and  rewarded  all  those  who 
by  any  rare  or  conspicuous  ability  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  conservation  of  republics  and  states. 
He  therefore  applied  himself  with  diligence  to  devise 
some  new  invention  whereby  he  might  be  of  service 
to  the  state  and  acquire  honour  and  reward  in  the 
pay  of  some  prince ;  and,  soldier  and  professor  of 
war  though  he  was,  he  perceived  that  the  science 
of  handwriting,  by  which  the  whole  world  is 
governed  and  directed,  could  bring  to  him  that 
profit  and  honour  which  he  so  ardently  desired.  To 
this  science  accordingly  he  gave  himself  up,  sparing 
neither  time,  trouble,  nor  fatigue  until  he  had 
mastered  it  so  thoroughly  that  the  forgery  of  every 
kind  of  handwriting  of  all  conditions  of  men — an 
achievement  which  the  world  may  haply  think  impos- 
sible and  incredible — has  become  for  him  both  easy 
and  certain.  He  now  offers  to  your  Serenity  to 
forge  every  kind  of  writing  so  perfectly  that  detec- 
tion shall  be  impossible.  This  offer  applies  to 
Latin,  Italian,  French,  and  Spanish,  languages  with 
which  he  is  acquainted.  The  other  languages  which 


CELIO   MALASPINA  249 

he  does  not  know,  German,  Greek,  Slave,  Hebrew, 
and  Turkish,  he  will  undertake  to  forge  if  an  inter- 
preter be  supplied  him  to  translate  the  letters.  And 
because  these  forgeries  would  remain  incomplete, 
could  we  not  also  forge  the  seals  of  letters  as  we 
require  them,  he  also  offers  and  promises  to  find  sure 
and  easy  means  to  counterfeit  them  all. 

"  Heads  declaring  succinctly  the  uses  to  which  this 
science  may  be  put : 

"  To  sow  dissensions  and  discords  between  princes, 
generals,  colonels,  captains,  and  other  important 
personages. 

"  To  seize  by  stratagem  many  strong  places  in  time 
of  war  or  peace. 

"  To  delay  the  assault  on  a  besieged  city  by 
throwing  doubt  on  the  good  faith  of  generals,  officers, 
and  captains. 

"  To  liberate  prisoners  of  importance.  To  entice 
the  enemy  to  leave  their  defences,  and  so  to  cut  them 
to  pieces. 

"  To  raise  money  all  over  the  world. 

"  To  govern  the  votes  in  the  Sacred  College,  and.  so 
to  make  a  pope  to  your  fancy. 

"  To  secure  the  arrest  of  any  sort  of  person  you 
choose. 

"  To  upset  the  marriages  of  princes  and  other  high 
personages,  and  also  to  assist  such  marriages. 

11  To  raise  troops  in  an  enemy's  country. 

"To  upset  treaties  by  altering  and  forging  de- 
spatches, credentials,  safe-conducts,  and  passports. 

"  Finally,  to  ruin  all  the  pashas  and  other  lords  in 
the  service  of  the  Grand  Turk,  rendering  them  suspect 
of  treachery. 

"  And  all  this  I  would  gladly  do,  first  for  the  service 
of  God,  and  next  for  the  service  of  this  thrice  happy 
dominion." 

The  instances  we  have  quoted  will  have  sufficiently 
served  to  show  us  the  nature  of  the  proposals  made  to 


250  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

the  Council  of  Ten,  and  the  sort  of  men  who  made 
them.  If  we  turn  now  to  the  question  of  the  poisons 
themselves,  the  mode  of  preparing  them,  and  the  way 
to  administer  them,  the  documents  before  us  supply 
abundant  information.  The  number  of  poison-makers 
must  have  been  considerable.  We  come  across  "quelli 
dal  venen,"  who  lived  on  the  Lago  di  Garda ;  the 
famous  poison-brewers,  Peter  Paul  of  Padua,  Master 
John  and  Master  Michele  of  Vicenza,  and  "  nostro  fidel 
Vilandrino,"  custodian  of  the  garden  of  simples  at 
Padua.  The  poisons  which  these  masters  made  were 
of  two  kinds  :  slow  poisons  ("  venini  a  tempo  ")  and 
rapid  poisons  ;  and  the  manner  of  administering  them 
was  various.  The  method  most  frequently  in  use 
was  either  poisoned  meat  or  poisoned  drink ;  and  we 
have  seen  proof  made  of  the  "venenum  edibile"  and  of 
the  "venenum  potabile"  upon  two  pigs  in  the  presence 
of  the  Ten.  There  were  other  modes  of  poisoning, 
however,  though  they  were  less  commonly  adopted. 
We  find  instances  of  that  favourite  Indian  receipt 
pounded  diamond.  Again,  in  the  year  1585  the  French 
ambassador  relates  to  the  college  an  attempt  on  the 
life  of  the  King  of  France  by  means  of  poisoned 
seals,  which  had  effectually  killed  three  slaves  on 
whom  they  had  first  been  tried.  And  in  1499, 
Caterina  Sforza,  Lady  of  Forli,  attempted  to  poison 
Alexander  VI.  by  means  of  credentials  which  her 
ambassador  brought  to  his  Holiness,  wrapped  in 
scarlet  cloth  and  placed  inside  a  hollow  cane,  that 
they  might  not  kill  the  bearers.  These  are  cases  of 
poisoning  by  touch.  We  hear  also  of  proposals  to 
poison  by  smell;  of  little  balls  to  be  dropped  on  a 
fire  which  would  presently  kill  all  who  were  in  the 
room. 

Nothing  strikes  us  as  stranger  about  these  poisons 
than  their  inefficacy.  In  the  year  1514  we  find  Vilan- 
drino, one  of  the  most  famous  masters  of  his  day, 
sent  for  and  told  that,  as  the  fire  at  the  palace  has 
destroyed  the  poison  cupboard  and  its  receipts,  he 


RECEIPTS  FOR  POISONS  251 

must  furnish  some  two  or  three  more,  and  must  send 
in  the  receipts  along  with  his  new  concoctions. 
Vilandrino  produced  a  poisoned  water  ;  but  when  this 
came  to  be  tried  on  a  certain  Mustafa,  he  was  none 
the  worse  for  it.  The  Ten  ordered  a  second  dose  ; 
and  after  waiting  eight  days  with  no  more  satisfactory 
results,  they  conclude  in  disgust  that  Vilandrino's 
water  is  worth  nothing,  and  send  him  back  to  Padua. 
This  general  inefficacy  of  the  poisons  will  appear  less 
strange  when  the  reader  has  perused  the  following 
receipt  for  a  poison,  and  the  instructions  as  to  the 
mode  of  administering  the  drug.  It  will  be  obvious 
that  the  chief  difficulty  a  poisoner  had  to  face  was  one 
which  they  recognized  themselves — the  impossibility 
of  getting  any  of  their  poisons  to  stay  upon  the 
stomach. 

"April  21,  1540. 

"  Whoever  wishes  to  sublimate  four  or  five  pounds 
of  mixture  must  have  his  stove  of  bricks  and  a  plate 
with  holes  in  it  supported  over  the  stove.  He  must 
have  five  jars,  one  containing  ten  litres,  another  eight, 
and  the  rest  six ;  and  he  must  use  the  largest  the  first 
time,  the  second  largest  the  next  time,  and  so  on. 
He  must  have  at  hand  potter's  clay  and  horsehair  in 
equal  parts,  well  mixed  together.  With  the  clay  and 
hair  let  him  cover  that  part  of  the  jar  that  the  fire 
reaches.  Take  the  powder  and  put  it  in  the  jar ;  see 
that  the  powder  is  well  ground  and  mixed.  Cover 
the  mouth  of  the  jar,  but  leave  a  little  hole,  so  that  it 
can  evaporate  for  an  hour ;  then  close  it  hermetically 
with  clay.  From  the  top  of  the  stove  to  the  bottom 
of  the  jar  fill  round  with  clay,  so  that  all  the  heat  may 
reach  the  jar.  Give  it  a  slow  fire  for  two  hours,  then 
increase  the  heat  gradually  till  four  hours,  then  a 
stronger  fire  to  six,  and  a  stronger  still  to  nine  hours, 
but  not  excessive.  At  that  heat  continue  to  twenty- 
four  hours.  Lift  the  jar  off  the  fire,  break  it,  and  take 
what  you  find  in  the  neck,  for  that  is  the  good  stuff. 
Have  a  painter's  mixing  stone  at  hand,  and  grind  and 


252  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

mix  well  this  first  sublimation.  Put  the  powder  in  the 
second  jar  of  eight  litres ;  seal  its  mouth,  and  place  it 
on  the  fire  ;  a  hole  for  evaporation  is  no  more  required 
throughout  the  operation.  Give  it  fire,  as  above,  for 
sixteen  hours.  Lift  the  jar  off;  take  what  is  in  the 
neck  and  grind  it,  as  above.  Repeat  the  operation 
with  the  third  jar,  leaving  it  on  the  fire  only  twelve 
hours ;  the  fourth  jar  nine  hours,  and  the  fifth  jar 
seven  hours.  Take  a  round  glass  flask  with  a  neck 
that  may  be  hermetically  sealed  by  the  glass-blower ; 
you  must  tell  the  man  who  seals  the  flask  that  the 
substance  is  volatile,  and  he  will  know  what  to  do. 
The  flask  must  be  well  washed  and  dried  before  any- 
thing is  put  into  it.  Take  the  flask  with  the  powder 
and  water  in  it.  Set  it  on  a  slow  fire  of  charcoal. 
Have  a  light  ready,  and  constantly  look  into  the  flask 
to  see  if  the  liquid  is  boiling ;  when  it  begins  to  boil, 
raise  it  off  the  fire  a  little,  and  keep  it  at  a  gentle 
simmer.  If  the  simmering  threatens  to  stop,  add  a 
little  fuel.  Continue  till  there  remain  two  or  three 
tumblers  full  of  liquid  in  the  flask.  Take  out  the 
liquid  and  place  it  in  a  retort  whose  receiver  will 
contain  six  tumblers  full.  Distil  the  liquid  over  a 
slow  fire  of  charcoal.  When  distilled,  place  it  in  a 
glass  jar,  seal  well  with  red  or  green  sealing-wax, 
cover  the  seal  with  a  piece  of  kid,  and  tie  tightly. 
"  To  make  two  litres  of  the  liquid  you  require  : 

Sublimate  of  silver 2  Ib. 

Arsenic 6  grossi.1 

Realgar  .        .        .        .        .        .         .         .6 

Orpiment        .        .    '"    .         .         ...     6 

Salts  of  ammonia 6 

Salts  of  hartshorn 6 

Verdigris        ,        .  .  :   .        ^        .         .         .4 

"  All  these  substances  powdered  are  put  in  the  first 
sublimation ;  in  the  second  you  must  add  four  grossi 
of  aconite  root,  fresh-cut  if  possible ;  in  the  jar  that  is 

1  A  grosso  is  the  tenth  part  of  a  square  inch. 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  POISONS        253 

to  be  sealed  you  must  put  ten  pounds  of  water  of 
cyclamen,  called  in  the  vulgar  sow-bread." 

So  far  for  the  manufacture  of  a  poison.  Here  is  the 
way  in  which  one  is  to  be  administered  : 

"  The  method  of  administering  the  poison  is  this. 
In  every  tumbler  of  wine  put  a  scruple ;  if  you  wish 
to  poison  a  whole  flask  of  wine,  one  scruple  to  every 
tumblerful  the  flask  contains.  You  must  take  care,  how- 
ever, that  the  patient  does  not  drink  more  than  one  or 
two  glasses.  If  he  does,  he  will  be  sick,  and  the  poison 
will  not  have  the  desired  effect.  You  must  know  that, 
should  the  victim  be  sick,  a  violent  fever  will  ensue, 
and  will  last  five  or  six  days.  After  the  fever  passes, 
he  is  safe ;  but  on  the  appearance  of  the  symptom  of 
sickness  you  must  repeat  the  dose,  and  continue  to  do 
so  until  he  has  kept  at  least  one  glass  on  his  stomach. 
The  infallible  way  is  the  tumbler.  The  wine-flask 
sometimes  fails ;  the  tumber  never.  You  must  leave 
no  air-hole  in  the  stopper  of  the  jar,  otherwise  in  the 
space  of  four  hours  the  whole  will  evaporate,  leaving 
nothing,  zero.  I  send  two  qualities — one  in  a  round 
and  the  other  in  a  flat  jar.  If  the  victim  be  young  and 
robust,  use  the  round ;  if  he  be  old,  use  the  other." 

After  reading  such  directions  as  the  above,  we 
cannot  wonder  at  the  habitual  failure  to  poison.  It 
is  evident  that  the  poisons  were  concocted  upon  no 
scientific  principles  at  all,  the  sole  object  being  to 
collect  into  one  mixture  as  many  poisonous  materials 
as  possible. 

About  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  pro- 
posals to  poison  reached  the  Council  of  Ten  so 
frequently  that  they  were  obliged  to  institute  a 
separate  register  in  which  all  such  offers  were  re- 
corded. As  we  have  already  seen,  there  was  in  the 
ducal  palace  a  cupboard  specially  set  apart  for  the 
poisons  which  the  Ten  kept  in  store.  One  of  the  last 
documents  in  M.  Lamansky's  collection  relates  to  the 
confusion  into  which  this  poison  cupboard  had  fallen. 
It  runs  thus  : 


254  POLITICAL  ASSASSINATION 

"  1755,  1 6  December.  Seeing  that  the  poisonous 
substances  for  the  service  of  this  tribunal  were  scat- 
tered about  among  the  shelves  of  the  archives,  to  the 
great  risk  of  some  accident,  and  that  many  of  these 
said  poisons  were  grown  corrupt  through  age,  and  of 
several  neither  the  nature  nor  the  dose  was  known, 
their  excellencies,  desirous  of  arranging  so  delicate 
matter  in  the  good  order  necessary  for  its  use  and 
security,  have  commanded  the  consignment  of  all  these 
poisons  to  a  separate  casket,  in  which  a  book  shall  be 
kept  to  explain  the  nature  and  the  dose  of  each  one  for 
the  guidance  of  their  successors." 

And  with  this  document  we  will  close  our  con- 
sideration of  the  Council  of  Ten  and  political  assassi- 
nation. The  whole  truth  is  known;  nothing  further 
of  importance  remains  to  be  published  on  this  matter. 
A  few  more  documents  may  possibly  be  discovered, 
but  they  will  not  alter  the  general  aspect  of  the  case. 
The  worst  has  been  said,  and  at  first  sight  it  would 
seem  that  no  defence  is  possible.  We  are  tempted 
to  affirm  the  fierce  invective  of  the  French  ambassador, 
and  to  say  that  Venice  was  indeed  a  "  venenosissima 
ae  resurgens  vipera."  And  yet  upon  consideration 
we  think  it  possible  to  plead  justification — the 
justification  of  necessity,  which  compelled  Venice  to 
adopt  in  self-defence  means  condemned  indeed  by 
the  later  conscience  of  mankind,  but  not  absolutely  in 
contravention  of  the  ethical  standard  of  the  time,  by 
which  alone  the  Republic  can  be  fairly  judged  at  the 
bar  of  history. 


Caterina  Cornaro,  Queen  of  Cyprus 

IN  the  beautiful  Lombardesque  Church  of  San 
Salvadore,  in  the  right-hand  transept  looking  towards 
the  high  altar,  is  a  plain  stone  slab  bearing  this 
inscription:  D.O.M.  CATHARINE  CORNELIA 
CYPRI  HIEROSOLYMORVM  AC  ARMENLE 
REGIN^E  CINERES.1  It  covers  the  ashes  of  Caterina 
Cornaro,  Lady  of  Asolo,  Queen  of  Jerusalem,  Cyprus, 
and  Armenia  :  a  daughter  of  Venice,  born  in  the  hey- 
day of  Venetian  splendour,  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
and  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life,  the  confident,  un- 
hesitating assertion  of  sensuous  emotion,  were  declaring 
themselves  as  principles  of  existence.  Venice  had  won 
her  wealth  ;  she  was  turning  now  to  the  use  of  it ;  ex- 
panding to  the  joyous  and  seductive  air,  blown  from  the 
distant  salt  sea,  bright  yet  soothing,  languid  and  caress- 
ing, penetrating  and  pervading  all  with  its  magical 
perfume,  that  stirred  the  soul  and  drew  it  to  a  very  ocean 
of  rapturous  delight.  She  opened  her  eyes  and  drank 
the  changeful  symphonies  of  colour  that,  morning  and 
evening,  flamed  upon  her  water-ways.  Her  artists 
caught  upon  their  palettes  the  reflection  of  sunsets 
seen  from  the  Zattere,  and  laid  with  free  hand  this 
glow  upon  their  canvases ;  her  architects  evolved  a 
style  peculiar  to  themselves  and  to  Venice,  the  style 
of  the  Lombardi,  combining  the  grace  and  reserve  of  the 
classic  model  with  a  richness  of  colour  and  a  play  of 

1  The  queen  was  buried  first  at  the  SS.  Apostoli.  On  the  restora- 
tion of  that  Church  in  the  sixteenth 'century  the  ashes  were  removed 
to  San  Salvadore. 

255 


256  CATERINA  CORNARO 

fancy  which  culminated  in  masterpieces  such  as  the 
Ca'  Dario,  the  facade  of  San  Zaccaria,  and  the  portal  of 
the  Scuola  di  San  Marco.  "  Spartam  nactus  es  ;  hanc 
orna."  Venice  had  asked  for  no  Arcadia;  her  little 
Sparta  of  the  mud  islands  she  had  claimed,  held,  made 
beautiful ;  and  now,  should  she  not  enjoy  it  ?  The 
pulse  of  splendid  living  throbbed  through  the  life  of 
Venice,  stimulating  alike  artist,  patrician,  and  artisan. 

If  we  wish  to  know  what  the  women  of  this  ample 
Venetian  life  looked  like,  we  must  turn  to  the  pictures 
of  Titian,  Giorgione,  and  their  peers.  There,  in  the 
Venus  of  the  tribune,  large-limbed  and  golden  on  the 
white  couch,  or  in  the  Flora  with  full  breasts  and 
down-hanging  hair,  or,  higher  and  better  still,  in  the 
Madonna  of  the  ecstatic,  upraised  face,  with  arms  out- 
stretched:  and  breeze-lifted  locks,  ecstatic,  it  is  true, 
but  not  with  any  super-terrestrial  ecstasy — there  it  is 
that  we  shall  find  them.  But  should  we  desire  to 
learn  what  these  women  were,  not  in  body  only,  but 
in  heart  and  mind ;  if  it  be  their  daily  life  we  wish  to 
scrutinize,  to  see  them  in  their  homes  about  their 
business — we  are  left  but  poorly  off,  and  have  to  be 
content  with  such  scraps  of  knowledge  and  such 
inward  glimpses  as  may  be  caught  from  the  comedies 
of  their  day,  or  from  the  few  Venetian  novelettes  of 
Bandello  and  his  brother  raconteurs. 

One  thing  is  clear  about  their  manner  of  living — 
this  wide  luxury,  this  abundant  life,  was  not  for  all 
the  women  of  Venice.  A  curious  calculation1  has 
been  made  from  which  it  would  seem  that,  out  of  seven 
hundred  noble  ladies,  not  more  than  sixty  or  seventy 
were  in  the  habit  of  appearing  daily  in  public;  the 
others  remained  close  shut  in  their  houses,  except 
upon  festivals  and  great  public  functions.  It  was  the 
courtesans  who  freely  used  and  freely  enjoyed  the 
diurnal  splendour  of  Venetian  habit.  They  were 
always  en  evidence,  present  on  the  piazza ;  their  gon- 

1  Yriarte,  La  Vie  d'un  Patricien  de  Venise  (Paris,  Rothschild  : 
s.d.)t  cap.  ii. 


THE  COURTESANS  257 

dolas  to  be  met  out  on  the  lagoons,  by  San  Spirito 
or  the  Lido ;  their  liveries  became  well  known ;  their 
doings  and  their  sayings  were  the  subject  of  the 
people's  gossip ;  round  them  the  popular  interest 
settled.  The  great  ladies  remained,  for  the  most  part, 
a  shadow  and  a  name  ;  they  were  seen  once  or  twice, 
perhaps,  in  the  year,  upon  one  of  those  state  ceremonies 
when  the  noble  houses  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
wealth  of  jewellery  and  the  richness  of  the  robes  worn 
by  their  gentildonne.  But  even  on  such  occasions  as  a 
ball  in  the  ducal  palace,  given  to  some  wandering 
prince,  the  courtesans  held  their  own,  and  the  more 
renowned  among  them  were  sure  of  invitations,  though, 
at  times  like  this,  the  Venetian  nobleman  took  care 
that,  in  splendour  of  dress  at  least,  his  mistress  should 
not  eclipse  his  wife. 

It  was  a  free  and  brilliant  life  that  these  women  led ; 
they  affected  a  gorgeousness  of  dress — rich  coloured 
silks  or  velvets  or  Eastern  stuffs — which  distinguished 
them  from  the  noble  lady  whose  everyday  wear  was 
the  long  and  simple; black  silk  cappa.  Their  houses  were 
furnished  to  the  furthest  point  the  sumptuary  laws 
would  allow.  If  a  Venetian  gentleman  desired  con- 
versation, wit,  music,  even  such  politics  as  the  vigilance 
of  the  Ten  permitted — all,  in  short,  that  we  mean  by 
a  salon — it  was  to  their  drawing-rooms  that  he  had  to 
go.  It  was  there,  and  not  in  his  own  house,  that  he 
would  meet  Titian  and  Sansovino  the  architect ;  or,  if 
he  desired  a  lampoon  on  his  foe,  Pietro  Aretino,  with 
his  daughter  Adria.  Venice  was  tuned  to  a  high  note 
of  pleasure,  and  the  atmosphere  of  these  drawing- 
rooms  was  calculated  to  delight  a  trained  sensibility  ; 
for  many  of  the  women  were  greatly  accomplished — 
fine  musicians ;  brilliant  talkers ;  sometimes,  like 
Veronica  Franco,  skilled  writers  of  the  sonnet  and 
that  curious  polished  verse  which  says  so  little  and 
says  it  so  beautifully. 

Very  different  was  the  lot  of  the  noble  ladies.     They 
lived  from  their  girlhood  in  an  Eastern  seclusion,  as 

VOL.  i.  17 


258  CATERINA  CORNARO 

carefully  and  as  jealously  shut  away  as  though  they 
were  the  inmates  of  some  Turkish  seraglio.  The 
Venetian  men  had  imbibed  their  views  on  domestic 
matters  from  the  East ;  in  every  department  that 
which  touched  them  intimately  was  coloured  from 
Byzantium ;  their  deepest-rooted  instincts,  habits,  and 
forms  were  Oriental.  They  did  not  keep  eunuchs 
as  a  guard  upon  their  women,  it  is  true  ;  but  they  had 
a  hundred  jealous  eyes  always  on  the  watch,  and 
no  Venetian  would  think  of  leaving  home  for  long 
without  a  word  to  some  trusted  servant.1  At  all 
events,  they  took  advantage  of  one  fashion  in  favour 
among  Venetian  ladies,  and  by  flattery  they  induced 
them  to  wear  a  veritable  instrument  of  torture  which 
prevented  them  from  straying  far  afield ;  pattens 
of  an  enormous  size  were  in  vogue,  and  the  mania  for 
increasing  the  height  grew,  until  at  length  a  lady 
could  not  walk  without  the  help  of  two  attendants,  on 
whose  shoulders  the  giantess  leaned  her  hands.  One 
day  the  French  ambassador  was  in  conversation  with 
the  doge,  and  touching  on  this  topic,  he  remarked  that 
such  a  fashion  must  be  most  incommodious.  The  doge 
admitted  that  no  doubt  ordinary  shoes  would  be  more 
convenient,  when  one  of  the  councillors  broke  in  with, 
"  Yes,  far,  far  too  convenient." 2  The  cynical  suspicion 
expressed  in  this  story  suggests  a  far  from  happy  life 
for  nobly  born  Venetian  dames. 

The  married  women  were  not,  however,  the  chief 
sufferers  in  a  Venetian  household ;  they  saw  the  world 
upon  the  great  church  feasts  or  the  public  ceremonies 
of  state,  and  on  such  occasions  they  received  full 
liberty  to  indulge  their  taste  for  jewellery  and  dress. 
But  the  young  girls  never  stirred  outside  their  doors 
except  to  go  to  mass  or  confession  in  the  neighbour- 
ing parrocchia  ;  and  then  they  were  jealously  followed 
by  some  old  and  faithful  nurse,  and  their  beauty  care- 

1  The  Arsenal  museum  affords  a  proof  of  the  extent  to  which  this 
brutal  and  insulting  suspicion  could  be  carried. 

1  St.  Disdier,  La  Ville  et  la  Republique  de  Venise,  part  iii. 


VENETIAN   MAIDENS  259 

fully  hidden  beneath  the  long  white  fazzuolo.  The 
young  men  had  to  be  content  with  their  slight  oppor- 
tunities, and  they  made  the  most  of  them.  The  loves 
of  many  a  Venetian  story  begin  with  some  chance 
meeting  in  an  aisle,  some  ardent  glances  exchanged 
while  waiting  for  the  padre,  or  the  touch  of  a  skirt 
in  the  narrow  calle  between  the  house  door  and  the 
church.  This  jealous  watchfulness  was  extended  to 
all  teachers  as  well — to  music-masters,  dancing- 
masters,  governesses.  The  head  of  a  Venetian  house- 
hold disliked  the  presence  under  his  roof  of  any  one 
who  was  not  entirely  a  dependent.  And  experience 
may  have  taught  him  that  he  was  right ;  for,  as  it  was, 
very  often  the  old  and  trusted  nurse  would  find  her 
bowels  of  sympathy  too  deeply  stirred  to  be  with- 
stood, and  by  hook  or  crook  the  lover  of  the  church 
door  or  the  calle  would  win  his  way  to  a  meeting,  brief 
perhaps,  but  bright.  But  that  was  a  happy  fortune 
not  always  granted  to  Venetian  maids ;  and,  for  the 
most  part,  the  result  of  such  jealous  guarding  was 
that  the  girl  received  no  sort  of  education.  Nor  had 
she  that  other  feminine  resource  and  occupation  of 
dress;  for  at  home  she  was  confined  to  the  simplest 
clothing,  and  not  a  jewel  was  given  her  except,  per- 
haps, a  little  gold  cross  or  a  modest  silver  chain;  a 
flower  from  the  garden,  a  carnation  or  a  rosebud, 
she  might  put  in  her  hair,  just  above  her  ear,  but 
that  was  all.  -  What  else  could  she  think  of,  then, 
the  long  dull  day,  but  a  lover  or  her  wedding  morn- 
ing ?  For  marriage  meant  liberty  to  her ;  then  she 
would  have  music  lessons,  and  a  dancing-master,  and 
servants,  and  a  gondola,  and  invitations  to  the  ducal 
balls.  One  occupation  she  had  daily,  and  that  was 
to  sit  for  hours  in  the  sun  upon  the  housetop,1  with 
all  her  hair  drawn  out  through  the  top  of  a  crownless 
straw  hat,  each  lock  soaked  in  unguents  and  carefully 
separated  so  that  they  fell  in  a  veil  all  round  her  head. 

1  The  platforms  where  they  sat  were  called  altane.     See  Cesare 
Vecellio,  Habiti  antichi  e  moderni  (Venezia :  1590),  No.  119. 


260  CATERINA  CORNARO 

There  she  sat,  bleaching  her  tresses  in  the  sun  till  they 
grew  to  that  glowing  Venetian  gold.  Or  in  the  after- 
noon girls  of  her  own  age  and  fate  might  come  to 
keep  her  company,  each  with  her  old  duena,  who 
chattered  and  scolded  in  the  inner  court,  while 
they  would  sit  in  those  little  squares  of  high-walled 
garden  with  a  cypress  rising  on  either  side  of  the 
tall,  barred  gate.  Stories  they  told  one  another,  of 
what  they  fancied  love  was  like  on  the  other  side 
of  the  walls,  or  floating  in  a  gondola  across  the 
moon-lit  lagoon.  Songs,  too,  of  the  nursery,  learned 
in  the  cradle  from  those  old  women  whose  voices 
reached  them  from  the  courtyard  now — 

Bona  sera  ai  vivi ; 
E  riposo  ai  morti  poveri ; 
Bon  viaggio  ai  naviganti  ; 
£  bona  notte  a  tutti  quanti  ; 

or — 

Lei  non  m'  amava,  no  1 

caught  from  some  high-tenored  gondolier  as  he  rowed 
along  the  little  canal  below  their  windows.  For 
occupation  they  had  needlework  and  prayers,  and 
for  amusement  games  of  ball,  with  forfeits,  now  and 
then,  if  the  weather  was  not  too  warm,  in  the  large 
rooms  where  the  balconies  hung  above  the  canal. 
And  when  the  cats  were  away  surely  these  prisoned 
mice  might  play  a  little,  and  steal  out  on  to  the  balcony 
at  the  sound  of  some  singing  voice  they  knew ;  and 
then  bright  smiles,  and  the  wave  of  an  arm,  and  the 
carnation  from  the  hair  thrown  down  to  the  hands 
that  waited  for  it  below.  And  then,  sometimes,  love 
would  laugh  at  locksmiths,  and  balconies  seem  made 
for  rope-ladders,  and  night  and  the  small  canals  are 
dark,  and  gondoliers  may  be  found  trusty;  and  a  secret 
marriage  would  follow,  or  else  a  runaway  one,  and 
then  came  tears  and  scandal,  unless,  as  Bianca  Capello 
did,  the  girl  should  end  by  wedding  a  grand  duke  of 
Tuscany.  But  these,  we  may  suppose,  were  rare 
occurrences,  and  the  life  of  a  Venetian  girl  of  quality 


CATERINA'S  YOUTH  261 

was  dull  and  uneventful,  and  her  one  escape,  in 
marriage,  did  not  offer  a  much  brighter  prospect. 
All  she  could  look  for  were  ropes  of  pearls,  the  real 
passion  of  every  Venetian  woman,  more  long  and 
solemn  ceremonies,  a  visit  each  la  sensa  to  the 
Merceria,1  where  the  puppet  stood  that  changed  its 
fashions  to  the  Paris  mode  every  Ascension  Day ;  or, 
if  her  husband  were  a  podesta,  a  captain,  or  prov- 
veditore,  she  might  hold  a  little  court  at  Bergamo  or 
Brescia,  and  have  the  pleasure  of  being  the  greatest 
lady  there. 

For  Caterina,  however,  Queen  of  Cyprus,  a  more 
stirring  though  less  placid  fate  was  in  store.  She 
was  born  on  St.  Catherine's  Day,  in  1454,  the  child 
of  Marco  Cornaro  and  Fiorenza,  his  wife.2  The 
Cornari  were  a  very  noble  Venetian  house,  and,  as  so 
many  Venetians  did,  they  tried  to  heighten  their 
ancestral  value  by  claiming  the  blood  of  the  Roman 
Cornelii  for  their  veins.  On  her  mother's  side  Caterina 
had,  unquestionably,  an  imperial  lineage ;  her  great- 
grandfather was  John  Comnene,  Emperor  of  Trebizond. 
Queen  of  Jerusalem,  Cyprus,  and  Armenia,  descendant 
of  the  Emperor  of  Trebizond,  mother  of  the  Prince  of 
Galilee — what  a  curious  collection  of  vague,  shadowy, 
half-real  titles !  But  as  yet  they  lay  in  the  distance, 
and  Caterina  was  only  a  little  Venetian  girl,  living  the 
quiet  home  life  of  "other  Venetian  maids.  We  know 
that  at  ten  years  of  age  she  was  sent  to  the  convent  of 
the  Benedictine  nuns  in  Padua.3  There  we  may  fancy 
her,  like  St.  Ursula  in  Carpaccio's  picture,  asleep,  lying 

1  See  Yriarte,  La  Vie  d'un  Patricien  de  Venise,  cap.  ii. 
1  Her  descent  on  her  mother's  side  was  distinguished  (Romanin, 
Storia  Docum.  di  Ven.  vol.  iv.  lib.  xi.  cap.  iii.) : 
John  Comnene. 

Valenza=Nicolo  Crispo,  Duke  of  Naxos. 
Fiorenza = Marco  Cornaro. 

Caterina,  b.  1454. 
.*  Centelli,  Caterina  Cornaro  (Venezia,  Ongania  :  1892),  p.  54. 


262  CATERINA  CORNARO 

straight  out  in  her  gaunt-posted  bed  with  the  old  red 
hangings,  the  sheet  tucked  close  beneath  her  chin, 
where  the  delicate  hand  and  wrist  are  nestling ;  the 
small,  bare  room,  with  a  seat  or  two,  the  open  window 
where  the  cool,  fresh  air  blows  softly  in  with  the 
morning  light,  bowing  the  heads  of  the  carnation 
flowers  in  their  pot  by  the  window-sill,  bearing  on  its 
wings  the  few  and  early  strokes  of  the  campanile's  bell. 
But  the  angel  that  comes  through  the  opened  door, 
bringing  those  morning  dreams  that  are  true,  brings 
not  to  her,  any  more  than  to  St.  Ursula,  tidings  of 
peace. 

We  cannot  now  construct  a  portrait  of  Caterina 
with  any  certainty  of  likeness.  It  is  impossible  to 
obtain  a  close  view  of  the  queen  as  she  really  was ;  she 
speaks  too  seldom  in  history — indeed,  only  once,  and 
that  when  the  pain  of  her  life  was  bitterest  upon  her. 
Her  contemporaries,  however,  are  agreed  to  praise 
her  beauty,  gentleness,  and  grace.  All  that  we  can  do 
is  to  sketch  her  figure  upon  the  wide  canvas  of  her 
story,  catching  hints  for  our  study  from  contemporary 
chroniclers  and  artists.  We  can  show  her  drawn  to 
Cyprus  in  pride  and  expectation,  wounded  there  by 
death  and  treachery,  crushed  by  Venice  of  the  velvet 
paws,  sinking  quietly  down  the  hill  of  life  at  last 
in  the  sunny  seclusion  of  Castle  Asolo. 

We  must  leave  Caterina  for  the  present,  and  turn  to 
the  place  whither  she  is  surely  drifting,  to  Cyprus  and 
the  court  of  the  Lusignan.  It  was  a  dark  background 
for  Caterina's  bright  young  life  to  stand  relieved 
against.  The  kingdom  of  Cyprus  passed,  by  sale,  from 
Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  to  Guy  de  Lusignan  in  1192. 
Guy's  brother  and  heir,  Almerico,  married  Isabella, 
Queen  of  Jerusalem  and  Armenia,  and  thus  both  these 
titles  became  united  to  that  of  Cyprus.  The  crown 
descended  for  two  centuries  through  a  succession  of 
Ugos,  Almericos,  and  Pierres,  till  1426,  when  King  Jan 
Lusignan  was  made  a  prisoner  by  the  Mamelukes  of 
t*  and  bought  his  liberty  by  the  promise  of  an 


THE  COURT  AT  CYPRUS  263 

annual  tribute  to  their  soldan.  Jan  was  succeeded  by 
his  son,  John  the  Second,  a  man  of  infirm  character,1 
easily  led  by  the  women  about  him,  and  married,  for 
the  second  time,  to  one  of  singular  strength,  ambition, 
and  unscrupulousness,  Elena  Paleologus,  daughter  of 
the  tyrant  of  the  Morea.  The  Queen  Elena  was  a 
woman  of  that  type  so  often  produced  by  the  palace 
life  of  Eastern  courts.  Like  Eudoxia,  Irene,  or 
Pulcheria,  she  was  mistress  of  intrigue,  and  deter- 
mined to  govern  both  her  husband  and  his  kingdom. 
She  brought  with  her  from  her  home  those  principles 
of  policy  which  shrank  from  no  cruelty,  which  dwelt 
among  the  inner  chambers  of  the  seraglio,  and  moved 
by  secret  stairs,  by  venal  courtiers,  by  treachery  and 
poison.  When  Elena  reached  the  Cyprian  court,  she 
found  that  King  John  had  one  child,  a  bastard  boy, 
called  James,2  the  son  of  his  mistress,  the  beautiful 
Maria  Patras.  James  was  bright,  brave,  ambitious, 

1  "  Vir  muliere  corruptior,"  says  ^Eneas  Sylvius  of  him,  op.  omnia 
(Basileae :  1 55 1),  p.  379.  Hen.  Giblet  (Loredan),  Hist.  d£  rt  Lusignani 
(Bologna:  1647),  lib.  x. 

3  Vianoli,  Historia  Veneta  (Venezia :  1680),  lib.  xix.  p.  675  : 
"  Restava  (James)  nella  nudita  della  mera  qualita  naturale  che 
riceve  dalla  madre";  ./Eneas  Sylvius,  op.  omn.  edit.  cit.  p.  579: 
"  Natus  est  magni  spiritus  adolescens."  This  is  the  pedigree  of 
James  (Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  Archiv.  St.  Ital.  vol.  vii.  part  ii.) : 

i.  Ugo  IV.,  s.  1330. 
I 


4.  James,  1382.  2.  Pierre  the  Valiant,  s.  1361. 

I  ' 

I  3.  Piermo,  J.  1372. 

5.  Jan,  s.  1397, 
tributary  of  the  soldan. 

I 

6.  James  II.,  A  1432-1458; 

m.  Elena  Paleologo. 


Charlotte,  d.  1487,  James  II.,  b.  1440, 

m.  (i)  1455,  J°hn  of  Portugal ;  d.  1473, 

(2)  1459,  Lewis  of  Savoy.  m.  Caterina  Cornaro. 

James  III.,  d.  1474. 


264  CATERINA  CORNARO 

and  popular;  he  had  inherited  his  mother's  gift  of 
great  beauty,  and  the  king  was  infinitely  devoted  to 
him.  There  was  every  probability  that,  though  a 
bastard,  he  would  be  named  heir  to  the  crown.  The 
queen,  however,  gradually  asserted  her  power  over 
her  husband ;  and  in  the  end,  by  the  cold  cruelty  with 
which  she  mutilated  Maria,1  his  mistress,  she  terrified 
John  into  complete  submission.  She  saw  that  if  she 
desired  to  rule  absolutely,  she  must  do  so  through  her 
own  daughter,  Charlotte ;  but  first  the  handsome  and 
beloved  James  must  be  removed.  Elena  would  have 
chosen  his  death,  no  doubt,  as  the  surest  way  to 
the  attainment  of  her  object ;  but  James's  excessive 
popularity  rendered  such  a  course  too  dangerous. 
She  determined,  therefore,  to  destroy  his  hopes  of 
the  throne  by  compelling  his  father  to  appoint  him 
Archbishop  of  Nicosia.  Though  the  boy  could  not 
then  have  been  much  more  than  fifteen  years  old,  he 
was  probably  tonsured,  consecrated  in  the  four  orders, 
and  sent  down  to  the  palace  of  his  See.  There  he  led 
a  life  of  considerable  freedom,  and  indulged  in  amours 
and  intrigues 3 ;  but  he  never  failed  to  attach  all  those 
who  came  near  him,  by  his  beauty  and  his  grace.  At 
Nicosia  he  also  became  intimately  acquainted  with 
the  Venetian  merchants,  and  especially  with  Andrea 
Cornaro,  brother  of  Marco  and  uncle  to  Caterina. 
This  friendship  laid  the  foundation  for  the  closer 
connection  with  Venice  and  for  the  marriage  which 
was  to  follow. 

The  queen,  believing  that  she  had  disposed  of 
James,  now  turned  lier  attention  to  the  other  half 
of  her  design.  She  intended  to  seek  a  husband  for 
Charlotte,  to  induce  the  king  to  abdicate  in  favour  of 
his  son-in-law,  and  then  to  reign  herself,  through  her 

1  Queen  Elena,  with  diabolical  cruelty,  deprived  Maria  of  her  nose 
and  ears,  and  then  sent  John  to  visit  her. 

*  The  queen  was  constantly  attempting  his  murder,  and  once  he 
nearly  lost  his  life  through  the  treachery  of  a  favourite  servant.  But 
James  was  born  under  a  lucky  star.  See  Giblet,  op.  cit.  lib.  x.  p.  616. 


QUEEN   ELENA  265 

daughter.  Prince  John,  of  the  royal  house  of  Portugal, 
was  chosen.  He  arrived  at  Cyprus ;  the  marriage  was 
completed,  and,  under  the  direction  of  the  queen,  John 
assumed  the  reins  of  government.  But  Elena  found 
in  him  a  man  more  powerful  than  suited  her  purpose. 
He  had  resolved  to  rule,  not  in  appearance  only,  but 
in  fact.  The  queen  saw  her  mistake,  and  corrected 
it.  John  was  poisoned.1  It  now  became  necessary  to 
choose  a  second  husband  for  Charlotte,  and  this  time 
Elena  was  more  fortunate.  Prince  John's  widow 
was  betrothed  to  Lewis,  a  son  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy, 
selected  because  his  feeble  character  and  easy  tem- 
perament made  it  improbable  that  he  would  oppose 
the  queen.  But  before  Lewis  could  reach  Cyprus, 
Elena  died,3  and  the  king  immediately  sent  for  his 
bastard  son,  loaded  him  with  caresses  and  favours, 
refused  to  allow  him  out  of  his  sight,  and  showed 
every  disposition  to  make  him  resign  the  mitre  for 
the  title  of  heir  apparent :  he  would  certainly  have 
named  him  Prince  of  Galilee,  had  not  death  cut  him 
short.  John  followed  his  wife  within  a  very  few 
months,  and  Charlotte,  who  was  still  waiting  the 
arrival  of  her  husband,  was  proclaimed  queen.  James 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  his  sister,  and  then 
endeavoured  to  leave  the  court  in  order  to  return 
to  Nicosia.  But  his  intentions  there  were  suspected, 
and  he  was  arrested  by  the  constable  of  the  island, 
detained  a  prisoner,  and  some  attempt  was  made  to 
poison  him.8  Thanks  to  his  innumerable  friends,  and 
to  the  strength  of  the  party  which  preferred  a  male 
succession  to  the  crown,  James  escaped  and  reached 

1  vEneas  Sylvius,  op.  omn.  edit.  cit.  p.  379 ;  Giblet,  op.  tit.  lib.  x. 
p.  592. 

*  The  queen  died  in  1458 ;  King  John  on  July  24  the  same 
year.  See  Mas  Latrie,  Histoire  de  Pile  de  Chypre,  Doc.  vol.  iii. 
No.  xiv.  The  island  was  most  unhealthy :  death  after  death  occurred 
every  summer  during  the  heats.  See  Capo-di-lista's  journey  to 
Cyprus,  ap.  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit. 

8  Georgio  Bustron,  MSS.  Arund.,  Brit.  Mus.  No.  518,  fol.  21  v'., 
given  by  Mas  Latrie,  op,  cit.  Doc.  No.  xv. 


266  CATERINA  CORNARO 

Nicosia,  with  every  determination  to  make  an  effort 
to  unseat  his  sister.  His  friend  Andrea  Cornaro 
encouraged  him  with  hopes  of  Venetian  aid,  feeling 
sure  that  the  Republic,  out  of  jealousy  for  Genoa,  who 
had  espoused  the  cause  of  Charlotte,  would  gladly  win 
an  ascendency  in  the  island  by  helping  James  to  the 
throne.  Charlotte,  in  the  greatest  alarm,  urged  Lewis 
to  hasten  his  coming.  '  The  Prince  of  Savoy  passed 
through  Venice,  and  reached  Cyprus  before  the  arch- 
bishop could  construct  any  plan  of  action.  James 
declined  to  risk  his  life,  and,  with  the  help  of  the 
Venetians,  he  fled  to  Alexandria,  to  the  court  of  the 
soldan,  the  titular  superior  of  the  Cyprian  crown. 

There  James  pleaded  his  sex,  always  a  powerful 
argument  in  the  Eastern  mind,  and  excused  his  ille- 
gitimacy, which  Oriental  nations  have  seldom  con- 
sidered a  bar  to  succession.  He  further  urged  upon 
the  soldan  that  a  crown  tributary  to  him  was  being 
disposed  of  without  his  advice  or  consent.  James 
is  also  said  to  have  made  a  formal  recantation 1  ol 
Christianity  in  order  to  clinch  the  favour  of  the 
Mahomedans.  The  document  was  eventually  sent  to 
Pius  II.,  and  became  one  of  the  reasons  why  the 
Holy  See  always  showed  itself  so  hostile  to  James. 
But  there  is  very  little  doubt  that  the  whole  of  this 
episode  of  the  recantation,  as  well  as  the  document 
produced  to  attest  it,  was  nothing  but  a  forgery 
by  the  knights  of  Rhodes,  who  were  warm  partisans 
of  Charlotte.  Whether  the  archbishop  ever  signed 
such  a  monstrous  deed  or  not,  his  success  at  the 
soldan's  court  proved  complete.  His  beauty  helped 
him  to  the  favour  of  all  who  heard  him  plead  his  case, 
and  the  charm  of  his  manner  created  a  furore  on  his 
behalf.  In  the  hall  of  the  palace  and  surrounded 

1  The  document  is  a  curious  one,  and  is  given  by  Mas  Latrie, 
op,  tit.  vol.  iii.  p»  no.  yEneas  Sylvius  also  refers  to  it,  op.  omn. 
edit.  cit.  p.  580.  One  or  two  phrases  will  show  its  character :  "  Et 
negabo  deitatem,  et  adorabo  humanitatem,"  "  luxuriabor  cum  hebrea 
super  altare,"  etc. 


KING  JAMES  267 

by  his  mamelukes,  the  soldan  ordered  James,  then 
twenty-two  years  old,  to  be  robed  and  crowned 
King  of  Cyprus,1  and  adopted  him  as  his  own  son. 
From  his  new  father  James  received  a  convoy  of 
ships  and  a  detachment  of  mamelukes;  with  these 
he  sailed  to  claim  his  kingdom.  He  landed  at 
Cyprus,  and  city  after  city  fell  or  yielded  without 
a  struggle.  Only  two  castles,  those  of  Famagosta 
and  Cerines,  made  any  resistance,  but  they  presently 
surrendered.  Lewis  fled  from  Cyprus  and  returned 
to  his  father's  court.  The  Queen  Charlotte  withdrew 
first  to  Rhodes,  and  then  to  Rome,  there  to  implore 
the  aid  of  Pope  Pius  against  her  brother  and  his 
infidel  allies. 

James  was  firmly  placed  upon  the  throne.  But  he 
saw  arrayed  against  him  the  Genoese,  whom  he  had 
expelled  from  the  island,  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  in  the 
interest  of  Charlotte,  and  the  pope,  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  his  title  and  had  received  his  ambas- 
sadors with  very  scant  courtesy.  He  could  look  for 
no  sure  support  from  the  soldan,  who  was  more  likely 
to  seize  Cyprus  for  his  own  than  to  undertake  wars  in 
defence  of  James.  It  was  imperative  that  the  king 
should  find  an  alliance  elsewhere,  and  marriage  seemed 
the  easiest  method  for  cementing  one.  The  prepon- 
derance in  Cyprus  could  not  fail  to  be  a  tempting 
dowry,  and  the  chief  competitors  for  King  James's 
hand  were  Naples,  Venice,  and  the  prince  of  the 
Morea.  Venice  at  first  advised  James  to  seek  an 
alliance  with  Andrea  Paleologus,  despot  of  the  Morea, 
but  difficulties  were  raised  at  Rome,  where  Pius 
refused  to  recognize  James  as  King  of  Cyprus. 
James's  old  friend  Andrea  Cornaro  then  pointed 
out  to  him  that  the  Republic  was  his  firmest  support, 

1  For  the  success  of  James  at  Alexandria,  see  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit. 
vol.  iii.  Doc.  p.  99,  ad  ann.  1460  ;  ^neas  Sylvius,  op.  et  edit.  cit. 
p.  579  ;  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  596  ;  Sanudo,  Vite  dei  Duchi, 
ap.  Muratori,  Rer.  It.  Scrip,  torn.  xxii.  p.  1185;  Navagero,  Storia 
Venezianay  ap.  Murat.  op.  cit.  torn,  xxiii. 


268  CATERINA  CORNARO 

and  that  it  was  to  her  he  should  contract  himself. 
Andrea  therefore  proposed  a  match  between  the  king 
and  his  own  niece,  Caterina  Cornaro.  A  romance 
has  been  made  out  of  the  circumstances  of  this 
suggestion.  It  is  said  that  one  day  Andrea  dropped 
upon  the  floor  a  miniature  of  Caterina ;  the  king 
picked  it  up,  and  the  picture  was  so  lovely  that 
he  became  deeply  enamoured  of  the  original.  But 
Andrea  played  with  him,  concealing  the  name  and 
pretending  that  the  portrait  was  that  of  his  mistress, 
until  he  had  worked  the  young  man  to  a  frenzy  of 
passion.1  Then  he  told  James  that  this  was  in  truth 
Caterina  his  niece,  to  be  won  only  as  Queen  of  Cyprus. 
However  that  may  be — and  it  is  more  probably 
romance  than  truth — whether  James  was  moved  by 
love  alone  or  more  by  policy,  he  sent  his  ambassador 
Podocataro  to  Venice  to  ask  the  hand  of  a  Venetian 
noble  damsel  as  his  queen.  Probably  thanks  to  the 
influence  of  the  Cornaro  family  in  Cyprus,  the  choice 
fell  on  Caterina.  The  Senate  gladly  accepted  the 
offer  in  the  name  of  Venice.  They  further  promised 
to  adopt  the  bride  as  a  daughter  of  the  Republic,  that 
her  birth  might  in  no  way  fall  below  that  of  her 
husband,  and  added  a  fitting  dowry  of  one  hundred 
thousand  ducats. 

The  contract  was  signed  on  November  10,  or 
30,  1468,  by  the  doge,  Cristoforo  Moro,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  Filippo  Mastachelli,  James's  proxy,  on  the 
other.  The  ceremony 3  of  the  betrothal  took  place 
in  the  hall  of  the  Great  Council.  Forty  noble  ladies 
went  to  the  Palazzo  Cornaro  to  bring  the  bride  to 
the  ducal  palace.  There  she  was  received  by  the 
doge,  the  council,  the  senators,  and  state  officials. 
A  consecrated  ring  was  placed  on  Caterina's  finger 

1  Daru,  Storia  della  Repub.  di  Venezia  (Capolago :  1837),  lib.  xvii. 

P-  356. 

'  See  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  Doc.  p.  182.  He  gives  a  fragment 
of  an  anonymous  chronicle  at  present  in  the  National  Library,  Paris. 
The  author  is  in  complete  accord  with  Malipiero,  already  cited. 


BETROTHAL  269 

by  Mastachelli,  and  Cristoforo  Moro  formally  gave 
her  away  to  James  Lusignan.  Then,  with  all  the 
ceremony  and  incidents  of  royalty,  her  court  recon- 
ducted  her  to  her  palace  at  San  Polo. 

But  her  passage  to  Cyprus  was  delayed.  A  hitch 
occurred  in  the  negotiations,  and  for  the  next  four 
years  Caterina  remained  at  Venice,  treated  as  a  queen 
by  her  fellow-citizens,  but  more  than  doubtful  whether 
she  would  ever  wear  the  crown  of  Cyprus.  For 
Ferdinand  of  Naples  had  been  secretly  endeavouring 
to  detach  James  from  his  Venetian  engagements,  and 
strongly  recommending  a  match  with  a  daughter  of 
his  own  house.  He  had  agents  at  work  for  him  in 
Cyprus — Lewis  Fabrice,  a  Catalan,  who  had  been 
created  Archbishop  of  Nicosia  in  spite  of  all  the 
efforts  of  Venice  to  prevent  the  nomination,  and 
Marin  Rizzo,  the  king's  chamberlain.  James  wavered 
between  the  Neapolitan  and  the  Venetian  alliance, 
and  showed  his  coldness  towards  the  latter  by  quar- 
relling with  Andrea  Cornaro,  uncle  of  his  fiancee^ 
The  Republic,  however,  determined  to  hold  the  king 
to  his  engagements.  The  government  sent  an  am- 
bassador to  the  Cyprian  court  to  explain  that  Venice 
would  make  the  rupture  of  this  match  a  public 
question  ;  further,  to  urge  James  not  to  disgrace  his 
royal  word,  solemnly  given  by  his  own  ambassador, 
nor  yet  to  put  this  slight  upon  the  queen  already 
pledged  to  him.  Venice  promised  to  take  the  island 
under  her  protection  whenever  the  king  should  fulfil 
his  contract.  The  attitude  of  Caterina's  guardian 
and  his  own  personal  inclination  determined  James 
to  abandon  the  Neapolitan  connection.  In  1471  his 
representatives  were  sent  to  Venice  to  bring  his 
queen  to  Cyprus.  There  still  remained  one  cere- 
mony to  be  performed.  Caterina  was  brought  from 
her  palace  to  the  Church  of  St.  Mark,  and  there, 
before  the  high  altar,  the  doge  on  July  14,  1472, 

1  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  Doc.  pp.  307,  310,  31 1,  312,  and  316 ; 
Romanin,  op.  cit.  vol.  iv.  lib.  xi.  cap.  iii. 


2/0  CATERINA  CORNARO 

adopted  her  as  a  child  of  the  Republic.1  She  was 
now  no  longer  a  Cornaro,  but  Caterina  Veneta 
Lusignan,  a  daughter  of  Venice.  Venice  took  the 
parents'  vows  for  her  child ;  we  shall  see  how  well 
she  kept  them. 

Great  rejoicing  followed  in  the  city,  and,  as  a  by- 
stander remarked,  "  it  seemed  to  each  and  all  that 
the  Signory  had  won  a  kingdom,  as,  by  God's  good 
grace,  did  actually  happen."2  In  September  of  1472 
the  Bucentaur  came  once  more  for  Caterina,  to  speed 
her  on  her  way  to  her  new  kingdom.  In  cloth  of 
gold  and  regal  train  she  appeared  on  the  steps  of  her 
palace;  the  doge  gave  her  his  right  hand,  and  side 
by  side  they  seated  themselves  upon  the  dai's,  while 
the  great  boat  moved  slowly  down  the  grand  canal 
and  out  to  the  Lido,  where  the  admiral  of  the  fleet 
was  waiting  with  the  ships  that  were  to  carry  her 
to  Cyprus  and  her  home. 

Caterina  was  eighteen  years  old.  We  have  no 
portrait  at  all  of  her  at  this  turning-point  in  her  life, 
though  the  Senate  is  said  to  have  commissioned  a 
certain  Dario  di  Trivigi  pittor  chiarissimo  to  paint  one 
as  a  present  for  King  James;  and  though  there  is 
hardly  a  gallery  of  note  in  Europe  that  does  not  boast 
a  likeness  of  the  queen,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
any,  save  one,  is  an  authentic  portrait  from  the  life. 
Gentile  Bellini  is  supposed  to  have  represented 
Caterina  in  the  person  of  the  stout  lady  who  heads 
the  kneeling  line  of  noble  ladies  in  the  picture  of 
"  The  Miracle  of  the  Cross,"  now  in  the  Accademia  at 
Venice;  but  the  picture  is  dated  MCCCCC,  Caterina 
was  therefore  in  her  forty-sixth  year,  and  in  fact  the 
figure  is  that  of  a  matron  long  passed  the  prime ;  nor 
is  it  probable  that  Caterina  sat  to  the  painter  for  a 
single  figure  in  a  crowded  canvas ;  moreover,  she  was 

1  Romanin,    loc.   tit.   July   14,    1472 ;    Malipiero,   Annali    Veneti, 

PP-  597,  598. 

1  Paolo  Morosini,  Historia  del/a  Cittb  di  Venetia  (Venetia :  1637), 
lib.  xx. 


PORTRAITS  OF  CATERINA  271 

then  living  at  Asolo,  and  rarely  came  to  Venice.  The 
life-size  Buda-Pest  portrait,  also  by  Gentile  Bellini, 
resembles  the  likeness  in  the  Venetian  picture  in 
the  dressing  of  the  hair  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
jewellery,  and  may  possibly  be  a  portrait  from  the  life. 
Caterina  is  represented  as  a  woman  of  about  forty-five, 
and  hardly  shows  traces  of  sufficient  beauty  to  justify 
Sanudo's  "  e  bella  donna."  Paolo  Veronese's  portrait 
in  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna  certainly  gives  us  a 
handsome  woman  of  the  large  Venetian  type,  gorge- 
ously dressed,  wearing  a  crown,  but  showing  little 
resemblance  to  the  more  convincing  Bellini  portraits. 
The  best-known  portrait  is  undoubtedly  the  picture 
attributed  to  Titian,  now  in  the  Uffizi  at  Florence. 
Caterina,  if  it  be  Caterina,  is  standing  up  in  a  rich 
purple  robe  and  cloak  of  green  embroidered  in  gold  ; 
she  has  a  crown  and  veil  on  her  head  ;  her  two  hands 
clasped  fall  down  in  front  of  her.  She  is  tall,  youthful, 
slight  in  figure ;  graceful  in  pose,  with  a  sprightly 
expression,  witty  mouth,  and  happy  countenance ;  too 
young  for  Titian  to  have  painted  her  thus  from  the 
life.  Moreover,  the  dress  does  not  agree  with  Ridolfi's 
statement  that  Titian  painted  the  queen  in  widow's 
weeds.  It  seems  that  Titian  did  talk  of  painting 
Caterina  as  Saint  Catherine,  but  after  her  death ;  and 
the  Uffizi  picture  may  be  the  original  or  more  likely  a 
copy  of  this  canvas.  The  Dorchester  House  and 
Apsley  House  portraits  belong  to  this  same  category. 
If  we  are  to  trust  Vasari,  Giorgione  did  actually  paint 
the  queen  from  the  life,  "  ritrasse  ancora  di  naturale 
Caterina  Regina  di  Cipro,  qual  viddi  io  gia  nelle 
mani  del  clarissimo  Messer  Giovanni  Cornaro."  It  is 
possible  that  this  was  the  case,  though  chronology 
again  renders  it  unlikely.  Anyhow,  the  picture  had 
disappeared  even  in  Vasari's  day.  "  Non  si  sa,"  he 
says,  "qual  fortuna  abbia  avuto."1 

The  most  authentic  likeness   of  the  queen  is   the 
picture  in  the  possession  of  the  Count  Avogadro  degli 
1  Centelli,  op.  cit.  pp.  131-48, 


272  CATERINA  CORNARO 

Azzoni  at  Treviso.  It  seems  to  have  come  directly 
into  the  family  of  the  Avogadro  by  the  marriage  of 
Rambaldo  to  Fiammetta  Buccari,  one  of  the  queen's 
maids-of-honour,  to  whom  Caterina  gave  the  portrait 
as  a  wedding  present.  The  painter  is  unknown,  and 
as  a  work  of  art  the  picture  is  of  no  great  merit.  It 
bears  an  inscription  recording  the  gift,  and  giving  the 
date  MD.,  when  Caterina  was  forty-five  years  old. 
She  is  represented  in  mourning,  with  a  crown  on  her 
head,  and  the  fine  gold  chain  with  pearl  ornaments 
round  her  neck  which  appear  in  the  two  Bellini 
portraits.  The  expression  is  kindly  and  witty. 
Difficulties  of  chronology  would  seem  to  leave  us  with 
the  Avogadro  portrait  and  the  two  Bellini  pictures 
as  our  only  authentic  presentments  of  the  queen.1 

Caterina  reached  Cyprus,  and  one  brief  year  of 
quiet  and  of  happiness  was  given  to  her.  Then  James 
died  in  the  July  heats  of  1473,  from  a  fever  caught  out 
hunting.  He  was  only  thirty-three  years  old,  and  the 
enemies  of  Venice  did  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the 
fever  was  the  result  of  Venetian  poisons.2  Between 
the  foes  of  the  Republic  at  the  Roman  court,  who 
bring  this  charge,  and  her  friends,  who  as  strenuously 
deny  it,  we  cannot  now  decide.  The  young  king  died 
and  left  his  wife  with  child.  For  other  offspring  there 
were  three  illegitimate  children,  two  sons,  Eugenio 
and  Giovanni,  and  one  daughter  named  Zarla,  a 
contraction  for  Charlotte.  By  his  will3  James  be- 
queathed his  kingdom  to  his  queen  and  the  child  that 
should  be  born  of  her.  He  appointed  a  commission 
of  seven  nobles,  including  Andrea  Cornaro,  to  advise 
and  support  Caterina.  On  her  death  the  crown 
was  to  descend  to  her  child,  with  reversion  to  each  of 

1  See  Molmenti,  op.  cit.  part  ii.  p.  494,  note  3,  pp.  516-19. 

f  Sismondi  (Rep.  Ital.  cap.  xxviii.)  quotes  Raynaldus,  Ann.  Eccles., 
as  the  authority  for  the  poisoning. 

J  Giorgio  Bustron,  Chron.,  MSS.  Arund.,  Brit.  Mus.  No.  518, 
fol.  69  v°.,  the  Will  of  James  ;  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  Doc.  p.  445  ; 
Sanudo,  op.  cit.  p.  1197. 


BIRTH  OF  A  SON  273 

his  bastard  sons  in  order  of  birth,  and  then  to  his 
bastard  daughter,  in  case  the  legitimate  line  should 
fail.  The  constitution  of  the  queen's  council  did  not 
give  much  promise  of  peace,  for  it  contained  such 
antagonistic  elements  as  Andrea  Cornaro,  the  Venetian, 
and  Marin  Rizzo,  and  John  Fabrice,  brother  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Nicosia,  both  of  whom  we  have  already 
seen  engaged  by  Ferdinand  of  Naples  to  break  the 
match  between  James  and  Caterina. 

Her  troubles  were  beginning  to  close  around  the 
queen.  No  child  had  yet  been  born ;  and  Cyprus  was 
almost  an  open  prey,  lying  ready  to  the  swiftest  or  the 
strongest  arm.  Caterina,  only  nineteen  years  old,  saw 
enemies  on  every  hand.  The  Cypriot  nobles  were 
jealous  of  Venetian  ascendency,  and  the  archbishop 
had  little  difficulty  in  persuading  them  to  think  favour- 
ably of  Ferdinand's  pretensions  as  the  surest  counter- 
balance to  the  influence  of  the  Republic.  Venice,  as 
Caterina  perhaps  surmised,  would  never  hesitate  to 
take  her  kingdom  from  her  when  the  moment  came. 
But  just  now  the  government  was  engaged  in  a  close 
and  single-handed  struggle  with  the  Turk ;  Venice 
had  lost  Negropont  (1470),  next  year  was  to  witness 
the  heroic  defence  of  Scutari,  and  Europe  was 
presently  to  experience  the  shock  of  seeing  the  Turks 
before  Otranto.  So  for  the  present  Caterina  might 
look  for  help  and  advice  from  her  home,  knowing  that 
if  the  Venetians  were  themselves  unable  to  occupy 
the  island,  they  would  never  willingly  allow  another 
power  to  do  so.  There  was  yet  a  third  danger 
besetting  the  queen :  Charlotte  renewed  her  claim  to 
the  throne  as  the  sole  legitimate  Lusignan. 

On  August  28,  1473,  a  child  was  born  to  Caterina, 
and  called  James  after  his  father.  As  grandson  of  the 
Republic,  his  sponsors  at  the  font  were  Mocenigo,  the 
admiral,  and  the  two  provveditori1  of  the  fleet.  By 
the  will  of  James,  the  birth  of  this  boy  should  have 

1  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  599  ;  Ceppio  Coriolan,  De  Petri 
Mocenici  gestis>  lib.  ii. 

VOL.    I.  1 8 


274  CATERINA  CORNARO 

settled  all  claims  to  the  throne.  But  no  sooner  had 
the  Venetian  fleet  sailed  away  than  the  Archbishop  of 
Nicosia,  who  had  been  maturing  his  plans  with  the 
King  of  Naples,  rose  in  revolt.  His  scheme  was  to 
marry  Alfonso,  a  bastard  of  Naples,  to  Zarla,  James's 
illegitimate  daughter.  To  carry  out  this  design  the 
archbishop,  the  Counts  of  Tripoli  and  Jaffa,  with  Marin 
Rizzo,  all  three  of  whom  had  been  named  of  the 
council  by  James,  seized  on  the  city  of  Famagosta, 
where  Caterina  was  lying,  recovering  from  childbirth. 
The  town  was  roused  by  the  uproar  in  the  middle  of 
the  night.  The  conspirators  forced  their  way  into  the 
palace ;  Gabriel  Gentile,  the  queen's  physician,  fled  for 
safety  to  Caterina's  own  chamber,  whither  he  was 
pursued  by  Marin,  and,  like  David  Rizzio,  slain  in  the 
very  arms  of  the  queen.  Her  uncle  Andrea  and  her 
cousin  Marco  Bembo  were  both  stabbed  under  the 
walls  of  the  castle,  and  their  naked  bodies  thrown  into 
the  moat,  where  they  lay  many  days  within  sight  of 
the  queen's  windows,  nor  dared  she  take  them  up  to 
bury  them  until  they  were  half  eaten  by  the  dogs. 
The  conspirators  carried  the  young  boy  James  away 
from  his  mother,  and  Alfonso  was  proclaimed  Prince 
of  Galilee.  Caterina,  herself  a  close  prisoner,  they 
compelled  to  write  a  letter  to  the  Venetian  Senate, 
explaining  that  the  murder  of  her  uncle  and  her  cousin 
was  due  to  some  private  quarrel  between  them  and 
the  soldiers  whose  pay  they  had  withheld.1  But  the 

1  Nov.  15,  1473.  See  despatch  of  Giosafat  Barbaro  to  the  doge, 
Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  Doc.  p.  352.  Barbaro  gives  an  account 
of  the  events  of  that  night  :  "  Questa  note  preterita,  cercha  a  hore 
XL,  essendo  nel  letto,  premeditando  molte  e  diverse  cose,  alditi- verso 
la  piaza  uno  inusato  son  de  campana  .  .  .  per  la  qual  cossa  chiamai 
suso  el  mio  fameglio  e  disili  chel  s&  dovesse  far  a  la  fenestra  e  star 
attento  se  el  sentiva  remor  alguno,  sentando  mi  ulular  e  latrar 
assaissimi  cani."  Roman,  loc.  cit.  Letter  of  Senate  to  Angelo  de 
Adria,  Jan.  22,  1474  :  "  Ma  in  la  camera  propria  in  conspecto  di 
quella  povera  zoveneta  taglioro  a  pezzi  il  suo  proprio  medico  e  un 
altro  suo  servitor  e  domestico.  .  .  .  Tolsero  la  cassa  e  le  zoie,  1'anello 
del  sigilo  e  1'  obbligarono  a  scriver  lettere  ai  castellani  di  ceder  loro 


VENETIAN   INTERVENTION  275 

Venetian  consul  sent  home  a  true  account  of  how 
matters  stood,  and  orders  were  despatched  to  Mocenigo 
to  sail  at  once  for  Cyprus,  where  he  was  to  secure 
by  any  means  the  safety  of  Caterina  and  her  son.1 
Mocenigo,  however,  had  forestalled  his  instructions, 
and  had  already  sent  the  provveditore  Soranzo  to  the 
island,  promising  himself  to  follow.  When  Soranzo 
reached  Cyprus,  he  found  the  conspirators  quarrelling 
among  themselves,  while  the  people  of  Famagosta  and 
Nicosia  had  risen  for  the  queen,  and  were  clamor- 
ously demanding  her  liberation.  On  the  approach  of 
Mocenigo  the  chief  conspirators  fled.  Order  was 
restored  and  many  executions  followed.  In  obedience 
to  injunctions  from  Venice,  the  forts  were  put  into 
the  hands  of  men  wholly  devoted  to  the  Republic.  A 
review  of  all  arms  took  place  before  the  queen  at 
Famagosta,  as  a  display  of  power  and  a  warning  to 
the  disaffected ;  and,  in  reward  for  his  services, 
Caterina  presented  Mocenigo  with  a  golden  shield, 
emblazoned  with  the  arms  of  Lusignan.  Quiet  was 
apparently  secured,  and  the  Venetian  admiral  sailed 
away. 

But  Venice  was  beginning  to  lay  her  hand  upon 
Cyprus ;  by  this  protection  of  the  queen  she  estab- 
lished a  right  to  a  voice  in  the  government  of  that 
island.  In  March  of  the  following  year  the  Senate 
appointed  a  provveditore  and  two  councillors  as 
permanent  residents  to  assist  Caterina  in  her 
government.3 

Trouble  on  trouble  pursued  Caterina.  In  August, 
1474,  her  boy  died  of  fever.  He  was  only  one  year 
old  ;  and  again  the  charge  of  Venetian  poisoning  was 

le  fortezze."  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  600 ;  Ceppio  Coriolan, 
De  Petri  Moceniri  gestis,  lib.  iii. ;  Sabellico,  Historia  Veneta^  Dec.  iii. 
lib.  ix. ;  Navagero,  op.  cit.  p.  1138. 

1  Despatch  of  Senate  to  Mocenigo,  Dec.  20,  1473,  Secreti,  xxvi. 
fol.  58  ;  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  p.  362. 

1  Secreti,  xxvi.  fol.  79 ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit.  p.  370  ;  Romanin, 
loc.  cit. 


276  CATERINA  CORNARO 

renewed,  but  the  more  obvious  and  more  probable 
cause  of  his  death  was  the  deadly  malaria1  of  the 
coast  region.  Caterina  wrote  to  the  Senate,  telling 
them  of  her  loss;  and  orders  were  given  that  her 
father,  Marco  Cornaro,  should  go  to  Cyprus,2  nomin- 
ally to  comfort  his  daughter  and  to  bear  the  con- 
dolence of  the  Republic,  really  to  act  as  Venetian 
agent  in  conjunction  with  Giovanni  Soranzo,  their 
provveditore,  in  checking  any  revolt  which  might  follow 
on  the  death  of  young  James  Lusignan.  This  dread 
of  revolution  was  not  groundless.  When  her  nephew 
died,  Charlotte  renewed  her  claim  to  the  throne,  and 
many  of  the  Cypriot  noblemen  declared  for  her  as  the 
last  true  Lusignan.  She  was  a  brave,  determined 
woman,  with  the  courage  and  the  resource  of  her 
mother  Elena.  When  the  boy  died,  she  was  at  the 
court  of  the  Soldan  of  Egypt,  urging  her  legitimacy, 
as  her  brother  James  had  urged  his  manhood  and  his 
beauty.  Charlotte  further  promised,  if  the  soldan 
helped  her  to  the  crown,  that  she  would  pay  in  full 
the  annual  tribute,  which  Caterina  had  allowed  to  fall 
into  arrears.  Venice  was  not  at  that  moment  able  to 
undertake  the  defence  of  Cyprus  against  Charlotte 
and  the  soldan,  but  by  diplomacy  she  succeeded  in 
cutting  the  ground  from  under  the  ex-queen's  feet. 
The  provveditore  was  instructed  to  advise  Caterina  to 
send  an  embassy  to  the  Alexandrian  court  with 
the  tribute  which  was  wanting,3  and  to  excuse  the 
delay  on  the  score  of  the  ravages  committed  by  the 
locusts.  The  Venetian  provveditore  and  two  councillors, 
who  had  been  appointed  nominally  to  assist  the 
queen,  but  in  reality  to  govern  Cyprus  and  direct  its 
policy,  dictated  the  terms  of  the  apology.  Caterina 
obeyed;  her  embassy  was  favourably  received  in 
Egypt,  and  Charlotte  was  dismissed.  But  she 
refused  to  cease  her  efforts.  She  returned  to  Italy, 

1  Romanin,  op.  cit.  lib.  xi.  cap.  5. 

1  Nov.  II,  1474,  Secreti,  xxvi.  fol.  152  ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit.  p.  398. 

8  Secreti,  xxvi.  fol.  138  ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit.  p.  391. 


VENICE  GARRISONS  CYPRUS          277 

and  continued  to  urge  the  Dukes  of  Milan  and  Savoy, 
the  Genoese,  and  the  pope  to  lend  her  their  aid. 
Letters  written  by  her  to  Genoa  were  intercepted 
and  sent  to  Venice.1  They  disclosed  a  scheme  for  a 
descent  on  Cyprus  already  far  advanced.  The 
Venetian  government  ordered  their  admiral,  Antonio 
Loredan,  the  hero  of  Scutari,  to  garrison  the  forts 
on  the  island,2  and  to  arrest  and  send  to  Venice  Maria 
Patras,  the  mother  of  James,  along  with  his  three 
bastard  children.  The  marriage  between  young 
Alfonso  of  Naples  and  Zarla  Lusignan,  which  formed 
the  basis  of  the  archbishop's  plot  in  1473,  nad  never 
been  completed ;  and  the  Republic  saw  that  if  they 
held  the  young  girl  and  her  two  brothers  in  their 
power,  they  would  have  one  difficulty  the  less  in 
this  delicate  business  of  keeping  all  other  powers 
out  of  Cyprus  till  they  themselves  were  ready  to 
absorb  it.  Their  orders  were  obeyed  as  promptly 
as  though  the  kingdom  were  in  fact  already  a  province 
of  their  empire.  Loredan  sent  the  children  to  Venice. 
But  Alfonso  refused  to  renounce  the  marriage  which 
had  been  arranged  with  Zarla..  He  pursued  her  to 
Venice,  and,  with  the  help  of  his  father  Ferdinand, 
he  nearly  succeeded  in  carrying  her  off  by  stealth.3 
The  Venetians  replied  by  sending  the  child  to  Padua, 
where  she  soon  afterwards  died  of  the  plague,4  as  was 
said.  Alfonso  was  baulked ;  but  his  father  would  not 
allow  him  to  abandon  the  game,  and  in  1478  he  sent 
him  to  the  court  of  the  soldan.  Once  more  Caterina 
was  obliged  to  pay  the  deficient  tribute.  This  time, 
however,  Venice  instructed  her  to  demand  a  formal 
act  of  investiture 5  in  return  for  the  discharge  of  her 

1  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  607. 

1  Council  X.,  Misti,  fol.  175  ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  tit.  p.  408,  Oct.  30, 
1476  ;  Rom.  loc.  cit. 

*  Navagero,  op.  cit.  p.  1156. 

4  Council  X.,  Misti,  xviii.  fol.  182  ;  Jan.  16,  1477  ;   Mas.   Latrie, 
loc.  cit.  p.  412. 

*  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  605,  where  the  deed  is  given  in  fulL 


2;8  CATERINA  CORNARO 

debt.  The  diploma  came  back  to  the  court  of  Cyprus, 
and  Alfonso's  mission  failed.  He  wearied  of  this  chase 
after  a  wife  and  a  crown  ;  he  was  glad  to  find  himself 
beyond  the  reach  of  his  father's  restless  ambition ; 
Alexandria  was  to  his  taste,  and  he  gave  himself  up 
to  the  pleasures  of  the  town.1 

External  danger  seemed  at  an  end  for  the  present. 
But  the  continual  pressure  of  hostility,  the  rapid  and 
repeated  blows  of  destiny,  had  shattered  the  royalty 
of  Caterina's  state.  Her  tenure  of  the  throne  hung 
upon  the  fine  thread  of  Venetian  pleasure ;  her  tenure 
of  life  depended  upon  an  equation  between  the 
strength  of  the  Venetian  garrison  and  the  force  or 
cunning  of  the  Cypriot  nobles  belonging  to  the 
Aragonese  party.  The  queen's  household,  her  move- 
ments, her  very  income,  now  limited  to  eight  thou- 
sand ducats,  were  under  tdheirection  of  the  provveditore 
and  his  councillors.  The  doge  has  to  order  them 
not  to  hold  the  reins  so  tight,  but  to  allow  the  queen 
to  move  from  one  palace  to  another,  and  to  see  that 
her  table  is  properly  supplied.3  Her  liberty  was  gone ; 
it  was  hardly  possible  that  she  could,  by  any  course 
of  conduct,  satisfy  the  government  which  intended 
eventually  to  unthrone  her.  One  thing  she  certainly 
might  not  do ;  she  must  never  dream  of  a  second 
marriage.  It  might  have  been  some  consolation  to 
Caterina  had  the  Venetian  domination  secured  to  her 
peace.  But  there  was  no  rest  inside  her  island  king- 
dom. The  citizens,  the  people  of  Cerines,  Famagosta, 
Nicosia,  were  faithful  to  her ;  they  loved  their  queen. 
But  all  through  the  island  the  great  nobles  were  her 
enemies,  and  drew  with  them  their  peasants.  They 
were  profoundly  jealous  of  Venetian  rule ;  they  saw 
the  weakness  of  the  queen ;  some  of  them  coveted  the 
throne  for  themselves.  Caterina  was  constrained 
to  live  in  constant  dread  of  revolution,  murder,  or 

1  Romanin,  loc.  cit. 

*  Colbertaldi,  Hist,  di    Cat.    Cornara^    MS.    cod.    viii.    It.    alia 
Marciana. 


CATERINA'S  MISFORTUNES  279 

dethronement,  shut  within  the  walls  of  one  or  other  of 
her  faithful  towns.  Conspiracy  after  conspiracy  was 
discovered,  some  directed  against  her  life,  others 
against  her  liberty.  At  each  new  outbreak  she  could 
see  the  frown  gathering  upon  her  parent's  brow. 
The  dread  of  Venice  was  always  before  her  eyes. 
Yet  she  was  absolutely  helpless ;  never  was  a  queen 
more  so ;  caught  between  rebellious  subjects  whom 
she  could  not  rule  and  a  cold,  uncompromising 
guardian  who  desired  her  kingdom.  For  the  better 
protection  of  Caterina,  Venice,  in  1477,  had  proposed 
to  send  a  colony  of  one  hundred  Venetian  nobles  l 
to  the  island.  They  were  to  receive  large  fiefs  and 
a  salary  of  three  hundred  ducats  each.  But  when 
the  commissioners  sent  to  prepare  the  draft  of  the 
scheme  came  to  examine  the  Cyprian  exchequer,  they 
had  to  report  that  it  would  not  bear  this  additional 
charge.  The  design  accordingly  fell  through.  The 
government,  however,  continued  to  appoint  governors, 
captains,  treasurers,  provveditori2  ;  occupying  every 
post  at  court  and  every  fort  in  the  island.  Each  new 
arrival  from  Venice  deepened  the  hatred  of  the 
Cypriot  nobles  and  increased  the  danger  to  Caterina's 
life.  The  pain  of  her  position  was  so  great  that  she 
may  well  have  wished  for  the  end ;  but  that  was  to 
be  delayed  for  many  years  yet ;  and,  when  it  did 
come,  it  proved  to  her  the  bitterest  experience  of  all 
her  bitter  fate.  For  ten  years  more  she  lived  on  in 
Cyprus,  feeling  her  life  daily  curbed  and  crushed 
between  her  subjects  and  her  guardians.  Young, 
beautiful,  and  unhappy,  called  to  a  government  be- 
yond her  powers,  the  fate  of  Caterina  recalls  to 
us  the  equally  disastrous  lot  of  that  other  lovely, 
hapless,  and  abandoned  lady,  Mary  Stuart,  Queen 
of  Scots. 

In  all  probability  the  provveditori  were  acting  on 
distinct  instructions  from  Venice ;  their  conduct  and 

1  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  pp.  606,  607. 

*  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  appendix,  p.  841. 


280 

the  ambitious  designs  of  the  Republic  point  to  that 
conclusion.  Quarrels  and  recriminations  took  place 
between  the  Venetian  officials  and  the  Cornaro  family 
represented  by  Marco,  who  espoused  the  cause  of  his 
daughter,  though  he  protested  to  the  government  that 
he  remained  a  faithful  subject — Marco  e  Venetian.  He 
complained  that  the  queen  was  exposed  to  all  sorts 
of  humiliations,  especially  by  one  of  the  councillors, 
who  seemed  inclined  to  be  non  consegiere  ma  signore 
e  governador.  They  compelled  her  to  take  her  meals 
in  her  own  chamber  sora  uno  deschetto,  longo  un  brazzo  ; 
non  ha  se  non  tre  over  quatro  garzoni  in  casa  et  un 
spendador;  then  he  bursts  out,  "I  swear  to  your 
Serenity  that  any  one  of  my  daughters  is  better 
treated  in  her  house  than  is  the  queen."  Caterina 
herself  follows  with  a  letter  complaining  that  she  is 
forbidden  to  write  or  to  receive  correspondence ; 
Soranzo,  the  provveditore,  is  attempting  to  make  him- 
self signore  e  governadore  de  questo  nostro  regno  ;  while 
Pasqualigo,  who  succeeded  Soranzo,  me  uxo  parole  che 
se  avesamo  robato  la  caxa  sua  et  la  sua  faculta  prome- 
temo  a  la  Nostra  Signoria  non  aria  usato  ste  parole. 
Finally,  in  1475,  the  spendador,  the  butler,  was  found 
to  have  attempted  the  life  of  Marco  Cornaro  by 
poisoning  a  fowl  destined  for  his  table.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Venetian  officials  report  that  Marco  voria 
esser  il  tutto  et  nut  niente,  and  accuse  him  of  aiming  at 
shaking  off  dependence  on  Venice.  "  lo  crepo,"  writes 
Diedo,  "  sentir  ogni  hora  per  ogni  lettera  li  deporta- 
menti  di  questo  novo  re.  ...  Per  Dio,  provedassi, 
provedassi,  non  diro  altro  piu,  perche  voria  poter  far 
et  non  dir."  Clearly  the  situation  between  Venice  and 
the  Cornaro  in  Cyprus  was  becoming  intolerable. 
But  the  severe,  nay,  cruel  treatment  of  Caterina  by 
the  Republic,  and  the  obvious  intention  of  Venice  to 
absorb  the  island,  rallied  the  islanders  to  the  side  of 
their  queen ;  a  change  of  attitude,  faithfully  reported 
home  by  the  provveditore,  took  place.  Venice  was 
not  ready  yet  to  take  the  final  step,  and  in  1479 


VENICE  CLOSES   HER  HAND  281 

she    ordered    her   officials   to    relax    their   vexatious 
policy.1 

At  length,  in  1488,  the  time  seemed  ripe  for  the 
annexation  of  Cyprus.  Venice  only  required  a  pre- 
text, and  that  was  soon  offered  to  her  by  two  events 
of  this  year.  The  Sultan  Bajazet  II.  intended  to  sub- 
due the  mamelukes  of  Egypt,  and  had  prepared  a 
large  force  for  the  purpose.  The  Venetians  surmised 
that,  on  the  way,  he  would  seize  Cyprus  as  a  base  of 
operations.  They  determined  to  remove  the  queen, 
and  their  action  was  hastened  by  the  discovery  of  a 
plot.  Marin  Rizzo,  the  old  conspirator  of  1473,  had 
met  Alfonso  of  Naples  at  Alexandria.  Rizzo  sug- 
gested that  Alfonso  should  sue  for  the  hand  of 
Caterina,  and  rely  on  his  father  Ferdinand  for  support. 
To  pave  the  way  for  this  match,  Rizzo  sailed  for 
Cyprus  in  a  French  ship.  He  intended  to  sound  the 
queen  on  the  subject,  and  took  with  him  Tristan 
Giblet,  whose  sister  was  waiting-maid  to  Caterina. 
The  two  landed  at  Fountain  Amorous,  and  told  the 
master  of  the  galley  to  cruise  off  shore  till  he  should 
see,  up  on  the  headland,  a  fire  signal  raised  by  night. 
The  Venetian  admiral  Priuli,  however,  was  aware  of 
the  whole  design.  He  seized  the  Frenchman,  and, 
after  learning  the  hour  at  which  the  signal  might  be 
looked  for,  he  manned  the  galley  with  his  own  sailors 
and  sent  it  towards  the  Fountain  Amorous.  All  went 
well ;  the  fire  was  lighted  and  answered ;  Rizzo  and 
Giblet  came  on  board,  and  were  arrested  by  Priuli's 
men.2  Both  were  sent  to  Venice,  but  Giblet  poisoned 
himself  on  the  way.  Rizzo  was  kept  in  close  and 
secret  confinement;  the  Ten  hesitated  to  condemn 
him  to  death,  as  he  pleaded  that  he  was  ambassador 
of  the  soldan.3  Finally,  however,  a  year  later,  he  was 
strangled  secretly  in  the  armoury  of  the  Council  of  Ten. 

1  See  Centelli,  op.  cit.  pp.  87-95. 

J  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  609  ;  Navagero,  op.  cit.  p.  1197. 
3  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  pp.  435-44 ;  extracts  from  the  Chron. 
of  Marin  Sanudo,  Council  X.  May  13,  1489  ;  Rom.  loc.  cit.      - 


282  CATERINA  CORNARO 

The  discovery  of  this  last  plot  determined  the 
Venetian  government  to  act.  Venice  could  never 
permit  a  second  marriage,  which  would  have  destroyed 
the  shadowy  title  of  heir  to  her  daughter  which  she 
now  claimed.  On  October  28,  1488,  the  Ten  arrived 
at  their  final  decision  that  Caterina  should  be 
recalled ;  and  Priuli  was  instructed  to  carry  out  their 
orders  as  firmly,  yet  as  gently,  as  might  be,1  only 
under  no  circumstances  was  he  to  fail.  "  We  fully 
authorize  you  to  bow  her  to  our  will,  with  or  without 
her  own  consent."  In  case  of  refusal,  he  was  to  inform 
her  Majesty  that  she  had  forfeited  all  claim  to  the 
protection  of  the  Republic,  and,  as  a  consequence,  her 
income  would  be  suspended  and  herself  treated  as 
a  rebel.  On  obtaining  her  consent,  Priuli  was  to 
affirm  everywhere  that  the  queen  had  taken  this  action 
of  her  own  free  will,  and  not  on  any  compulsion  from 
Venice.  Giorgio  Cornaro  was  also  commissioned  to 
accompany  Priuli  to  Cyprus,2  where  he  was  to  assist 
the  general  in  compelling  his  sister  to  resign.  And 
both  were  told  how  to  act  in  case  they  found  Caterina 
already  fled  to  Rhodes,  a  design  the  unfortunate 
queen,  in  her  terror,  was  suspected  of  harbouring.3 
Venice  had  closed  her  hand,  and  it  always  proved  a 
strong  one.  Giorgio  arrived  in  Cyprus,  and  found  no 
pleasant  or  easy  task  before  him.  He  had  to  en- 
counter the  strongest  repugnance  to  his  proposals — 
tears,  entreaties,  even,  as  we  have  seen,  thoughts  of 
flight ;  so  closely  did  the  queen  cling  to  her  kingdom 
and  her  shadowy  semblance  of  a  royal  state.  "  Is  it 
not  enough,"  she  said,  "  that  Venice  shall  inherit  when 
I  am  gone  ?  "  4  No,  it  was  not  enough  ;  abdication 
complete  and  at  once  was  demanded  of  her.  Promises 

1  "  Ultraque  omnia,  utemini  erga  majestatem  suam  omnibus  illis 
dulcibus,  humanis,  placabilibus  et  gratiosis  verbis  que  judicaveritis 
posse  operari  effectum  hujus  nostre  intentionis." 

1  Misti,  xxiv.  fol.  29  ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit.  p.  420. 

3  Misti,  xxiv.  fol.  34  ;  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  cit.  p.  429. 

4  Bembo,  Historia  Veneta  (Basilefe  :  1556),  lib.  i. 


CATERINA  ABDICATES  283 

of  a  regal  reception,  of  princely  treatment,  of  recogni- 
tion as  a  crowned  head,  of  a  large  income,  of  fiefs 
in  the  Veneto,  were  lavishly  made  to  her,  only  she 
must  obey.  Giorgio  had  to  resort  to  threats.  "  Non 
volendo  venir,"  he  had  to  tell  his  sister;  "sapiate  la 
Signoria  a  el  zeneral  con  1'  armada  qui  vi  levera  per- 
forza,  perdera  la  gratia  de  la  Signoria  et  nui  saremo 
ruinati."1  At  last  she  yielded.  The  abdication  took 
place  at  Famagosta  on  February  26,  1489.  In  the 
piazza  of  Famagosta  and  of  Nicosia  solemn  Te  Deums 
were  sung,  the  flag  of  the  Lusignan  was  lowered,  and 
the  banner  of  St.  Mark  blessed  and  unfurled,  while 
the  queen  looked  on  from  beneath  a  baldachino.  She 
saw  her  cities  taken  from  her  one  by  one,  the  cities 
that  had  always  been  her  own.  No  point  in  all  the 
long  ceremony  of  unrobing  was  spared  her ;  in  every 
town  and  village  the  same  cruel  pageant  was  per- 
formed. She  entered  each  one  as  a  queen  and  left 
it  discrowned.  Venice  was  determined  that  all  the 
world  should  see  how  willing  had  been  her  abdication. 
But  the  people  flocked  about  her  on  her  mournful 
progress  with  tears  and  blessings — tears  for  their 
liberty  lost  with  their  queen.  At  last,  on  March  19, 
1489,  it  was  finished.  Caterina  and  her  brother  sailed 
for  Venice,  and  Cyprus  became  a  part  of  the  Venetian 
empire. 

The  government  prepared  an  excellent  constitution2 
for  the  island.  Venice  never  failed  in  that  respect. 
A  lieutenant,  the  supreme  governor,  with  two  coun- 
cillors, was  established  at  Nicosia;  a  captain,  or 
deputy-governor,  also  with  two  councillors,  was 
sent  to  Famagosta;  to  these  were  added  a  military 
governor  or  prow  editor e?  But  the  Venetian  title  to 
the  island  had  no  legal  ground.  James  Lusignan, 
Caterina's  husband,  was  a  usurper;  Charlotte,  his 
legitimate  sister,  was  the  real  queen,  and  it  is  in 

1  Centelli,  op.  cit.  p.  103. 

J  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  611  ;  Navagero,  op.  cit.  p.  1197. 

3  Mas  Latrie,  op.  cit.  vol.  iii.  appendix,  p.  844. 


284  CATERINA  CORNARO 

virtue  of  her  claim  that  the  house  of  Savoy  still 
bears  the  empty  title  of  King  of  Cyprus.  But,  further, 
admitting  James's  title  as  good,  the  succession  to  the 
crown  should  have  been  governed  by  his  will,  which 
bequeathed  it,  after  the  death  of  his  last  bastard,  to 
the  nearest  of  the  blood  of  Lusignan.  In  truth,  the 
Republic  had  no  title ;  she  desired  Cyprus  and  took  it. 
It  never  brought  her  any  good  ;  it  is  even  said  to 
have  worked  much  harm  to  her  social  morality,  for 
the  island  was  the  home  of  a  deep-seated  luxury. 
Its  influence,  no  doubt,  did  help  to  heighten  the 
corruption  which  was  then  beginning  to  appear  at 
Venice.  The  opening  of  the  next  century  saw  the 
establishment  of  many  offices,1  each,  however,  more 
powerless  than  its  neighbour,  to  check  the  extrava- 
gance of  the  dress,  the  licence  of  the  monasteries,  the 
rapid  growth  of  vice,  the  decay  of  health  and  spread 
of  infectious  diseases.  With  much  trouble  and  ex- 
pense Venice  held  Cyprus  for  a  little  less  than  a 
century,  and  then  lost  it  to  the  Turks  in  1571. 

On  June  5,  1489,  Caterina's  galley  reached  the 
Lido.  There  she  landed  under  an  awning  of  gold 
and  crimson  stripes.  She  was  conducted  to  a  chamber 
prepared  for  her  at  San  Nicol6,  where  she  might  rest 
and  prepare  for  the  ceremony  of  the  next  day.  On 
the  6th  the  doge,  accompanied  by  a  train  of  noble 
ladies,  came  to  wait  on  her  and  lead  her  to  the 
Palazzo  Ferrara,2  now  the  Fondaco  dei  Turchi,  where 
her  lodging  had  been  made  ready  at  the  public 
expense.  But  when  the  Bucentaur  neared  the  Lido, 
a  burasco  blew  down,  and  so  disturbed  the  ladies  that 
their  condition  seemed  likely  to  destroy  the  stateliness 
of  the  occasion.  The  doge  therefore  ordered  the 
anchor  to  be  dropped,  and  waited  till  the  wind 
went  by.  When  the  sea  had  subsided,  Caterina 

1  The  following  offices  may  be  noted  :  the  proweditore  alle  pompe^ 
1514;  contra  bestemmia,  1537;  sopra  monastery,  1521  ;  della  sanitd, 
1485-1556. 

3  The  building  occupied  by  the  Museo  Civico. 


AT  ASOLO  285 

was  brought  on  board  the  barge ;  she  was  dressed 
in  black  velvet  with  a  veil  and  jewels  alia  Zipriota, 
as  we  see  her  kneeling  in  Bellini's  picture,  "The 
Miracle  of  the  Cross."  The  procession  moved  up  the 
Grand  Canal,  and  as  it  passed  the  Palazzo  Cornaro, 
Giorgio  received  the  honour  of  knighthood  from  the 
doge  as  a  reward  for  his  services  in  persuading  his 
sister  to  abdicate.  Then  followed  long  banquets,  and 
three  days  of  ceremony  in  the  Ferrara  palace.1  But 
one  last  function  yet  remained  to  be  performed  before 
the  Republic  would  let  the  Queen  of  Cyprus  go.  At 
St.  Mark's,  in  the  very  place  where,  eighteen  years 
before,  Venice  had  adopted  Caterina  as  her  child,  she 
now  set  the  seal  of  the  Church  to  her  spoliation.  The 
queen  was  forced  to  go  through  the  long  office  of  a 
second  and  more  solemn  abdication.  Then  the  govern- 
ment invested  her,  for  life  only,  with  the  Castle  of 
Asolo 2  in  the  Marca  Amorosa,  the  Trevisan  march.  Till 
Asolo  should  be  ready  to  receive  her,  she  was  lodged 
in  that  palace  on  the  Grand  Canal,  now  the  Monte  di 
Pieta,  called  the  Palazzo  Corner  della  Regina  after  her. 
The  castle  of  Asolo  stood  on  the  spurs  of  the  Alps, 
between  Bassano  and  Montebelluno,  at  no  great 
distance  from  the  Villa  Maser.  Far  away  it  looked 
across  the  plain  to  Padua  and  the  Euganean  Hills, 
those  islanded  mounds  that  rise  abruptly  from  the 
rich  growth  of  vineyards  and  of  mulberry  groves.  On 
the  other  side  of  those  hills  lived  another  famous 
woman,  beautiful,  with  golden  hair — Lucrezia  Borgia, 
Duchess  of  Ferrara.  The  morning  sun  and  clear,  light 
morning  air  come  fresh  to  Asolo  from  the  sea  that 
lies  round  Venice ;  while  behind  it  the  Julian  Alps 
swell  upward,  wave  on  wave,  towards  the  boundary 
heights.  It  was  here  that  Caterina  was  to  taste  the 
sweet  idyllic  close  to  all  her  stormy  life,  surrounded 
by  her  little  court,  her  twelve  maids-of-honour,  and 

1  Marin  Sanudo,  Chron.^  extract  by  Mas  Latrie,  loc.  at.  p.  445. 
*  Commemorialt,    lib.    xvi.    ap.    Mas    Latrie,    loc.    cit.     p.    435  5 
Mutinelli,  Annali  Urbani,  lib.  v. 


286  CATERINA  CORNARO 

her  eighty  serving-men,  her  favourite  negress  with  the 
parrots,  her  apes  and  peacocks  and  hounds,  and  dwarf 
buffoon.  Here  the  still  days  went  by  in  garden  walks, 
or  by  the  little  brooks,  or  in  the  oak  grove,  where  the 
company  would  talk  of  love  as  though  it  had  no  life, 
like  some  dead  god  that  could  not  reach  their  hearts  ; 
or  else  would  sing  the  sun  to  his  setting  with  touch 
of  lute-strings  and  sweetly  modulated  voices.  A 
dreamy,  gentle  company  in  a  soft,  rich  land,  where 
the  seasons  melted  from  glory  to  glory,  from  pure 
green  spring,  through  summer,  "  all  delights,"  to  russet 
autumn  and  its  falling  leaves,  where  "  dead-cold 
winter"  was  as  brief  as  might  be. 

Caterina  left  Venice  for  Asolo  on  October  11,  1489, 
and  all  the  people  of  her  little  principality,  olive 
crowned  and  bearing  olive  branches  in  their  hands, 
came  out  to  meet  their  lady.  Under  a  canopy  of  cloth 
of  gold  they  led  her  to  the  piazza  of  Borgo  d'  Asolo, 
where  an  address  was  presented  to  her.  "  Oh,  happy 
land  of  Asolo,"  cries  the  orator  in  peroration — "oh, 
happy  land  of  Asolo,  and  oh,  most  happy  flock  that 
now  hast  found  so  just  and  sweet  a  shepherdess !  Oh, 
ship  thrice  fortunate  whose  tiller  lies  in  such  a  skilful 
hand.  Ye  then,  ye  laurel  boughs,  the  victor's  meed, 
endure  the  sharp  tooth  of  our  knife  that  carves  on  you 
the  name  of  Caterina.  Sing,  birds,  unwonted  strains 
to  grace  the  name,  the  glorious  name,  Cornelia."  And 
so  he  goes  on,  appealing  to  poets,  to  historians,  even 
to  the  very  rocks,  to  eternize  the  splendour  of  her 
story;  apostrophizing  Apelles  and  Zeuxis,  Zephyr 
and  Jove,  and  the  Delian  goddess.1  In  spite  of  the 
unintended  irony,  it  was  all  like  some  May  masque 
designed  by  Poliziano  or  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  and 
executed  by  Piero  da  Cosimo,  with  its  sham  classicism, 
its  false  old  gods,  and  its  real  sweet  leaves  and  spring- 
tide air. 

Caterina  began  to  give  laws  to  her  little  kingdom, 

1  Tentori,  Soggio  d.  St.  Civil,  e  Polit.  d.  Venezia  (Venezia :  1790), 
vol.  xii. 


AT  ASOLO  287 

and  to  take  a  queenly  interest  in  its  cares  and  its  well- 
being.  She  opened  a  monte  di  pieta,  or  pawnbroking 
bank,  for  the  relief  of  those  in  pressing  need.  She 
imported  grain  from  Cyprus  and  distributed  it.  She 
appointed  her  treasurer  of  state,  her  potestas  regia, 
and  an  auditor  to  hear  and  judge  appeals.1  She 
wielded  her  little  sceptre  for  her  people's  good,  and 
won  their  love  by  her  gentleness  and  grace.  Here,  in 
the  quiet  of  twenty  years,  she  lived,  surrounded  by  a 
phantom  royalty ;  yet,  unsubstantial  as  it  might  be,  it 
was  as  real  as  any  she  had  known  in  Cyprus.  Here 
she  and  her  court  listened  one  and  all  to  those  grave 
ragionamenti  on  platonic  love,  with  their  weariful, 
never-ending  age  of  gold;  with  their  gods  and  god- 
desses and  mortals  made  immortal ;  with  Ceres,  Venus, 
Cupid,  Mars,  and  Jove;  with  Ganymede,  or  Daphnis, 
or  a  Danae". 

Let  us  look  at  one  day  of  her  life  that  has  been 
preserved  to  us.  The  speaker  is  Pietro  Bembo, 
brilliant,  handsome,  twenty-eight  years  old.  He  has 
come  across  the  Euganean  Hills  from  Ferrara  and 
Lucrezia's  court,  perhaps  with  that  famous  lock  of 
her  yellow  hair  already  closed  in  the  leaves  of  some 
book  he  carries.  The  month  is  September ;  and  the 
occasion  the  marriage  of  one  among  Caterina's  maids 
to  Floriano  di  Floriano  da  Montagnana.  There  are 
many  guests  from  the  country  round,  and  from  Venice 
too,  all  of  them  glad  to  escape  to  the  cool  mountain 
slopes  from  the  torrid  summer  heat  upon  the  plain. 
They  have  been  breakfasting  about  twelve  o'clock  in 
the  large  central  hall  with  loggias  on  either  side,  open 
t<p  the  air,  but  sheltered  from  the  sun  that  is  growing 
hotter  and  hotter  to  its  meridian  blaze.  The  faint 
breeze  reaches  them  through  the  arches  of  the  loggia, 
curling  round  the  wide-spanned  pillars.  Between 
each  of  these  are  framed  the  tall-topped  cypress  spires 

1  Colbertaldi,  Vita  di  Caterina.  From  this  author  and  from 
Bembo's  dialogues,  Degli  Asolani,  I  have  taken  the  details  of  this 
part  of  Caterina's  life. 


288  CATERINA  CORNARO 

that  shoot  up  from  the  gardens  below,  relieved  in 
black  against  the  deep  and  throbbing  blue.  In  the 
woods  and  alleys  and  under  the  pergolas  is  no  hush  ; 
all  the  pleasaunce  lies  quiet  and  silenced  in  the  noon- 
day heat.  The  meal  is  over,  but  the  company  is  still 
at  table,  Caterina  sitting  at  one  end,  while  the  talk 
flows  languidly  around.  The  musicians  have  played 
and  the  singers  sung.  At  a  sign  from  the  queen,  two 
of  her  maids  rise  up,  and,  moving  down  the  hall 
between  the  rows  of  guests,  they  curtsy  low  to 
Caterina.  Then  the  elder,  like  one  of  Gian  Bellini's 
or  Carpaccio's  "Angiolini,"  raises  her  lute  and  with 
one  hand  holds  it  to  her  breast,  while  with  the  other 
she  sounds  some  few  notes  of  prelude,  and  then  breaks 
into  song: 

A  maid  I  lived,  in  mirth  and  jocund  air ; 

Sweet  fancies  fed  me,  with  my  lot  content. 

Now  Love  doth  me  afflict,  doth  so  torment, 
Nor  now  nor  ever  will  his  torments  spare. 

I  thought,  ah  me  !  to  live  a  life  of  joy 
When  first,  dear  Love,  I  passed  into  thy  train  ; 
But  now  for  dolorous  death  I  wait,  am  fain  ; 

My  trusting  heart  how  could'st  thou  thus  decoy  ? 

While  yet  to  love  unyielded  and  estranged, 

Medea  looked  on  Colchis  free  and  glad ; 

But  when  she  burned  for  Jason,  bitter  and  sad 
Was  all  her  life  henceforth,  to  her  last  hour  unchanged. 

She,  when  she  had  finished  her  chaunt,  played  yet 
a  little  longer,  returning  upon  the  first  notes  of  her 
song :  then  the  younger  took  up  her  companion's 
refrain,  but  in  an  altered  fashion,  and,  weaving  around 
it  with  her  lips  and  voice,  made  answer  in  this  wise  : 

A  maid  I  lived,  in  dolour  and  distress, 

With  comrades  wroth,  with  my  own  self  in  rage ; 
Now  Love  with  such  sweet  thoughts  doth  me  assuage, 

What  can  I  else  but  sing  for  mirthfulness  ? 

I  would  have  sworn,  O  Love,  to  follow  thee 
Were  but  to  make  sure  shipwreck  on  a  rock  ; 
Yet,  while  I  feared  this  doom,  heart-riving  shock, 

Release  from  all  my  pains  is  granted  me. 


AT  ASOLO  289 

Until  that  day  when  first  Love  conqueror  plays, 
Andromeda  knows  naught  but  sore  annoy; 
When  she  to  Perseus  bows,  delight  and  joy 

Companion  her  through  life,  through  death  eternal  praise. 

So  they  go  on  with  "  nay "  and  "  yea " ;  the  "  oh, 
diviner  air  "  is  caught  up  and  answered  by  the  "  oh, 
diviner  light."  And  when  the  girls  have  finished 
their  antiphony  the  queen  calls  on  her  favourite  maid 
to  take  her  viol  and  sing  to  them,  a  closing  note  to 
the  "yes"  and  the  "no"  of  the  other  two.  Then 
Caterina  rises  from  table,  and  she  and  her  attendants 
retire  to  their  rooms  to  rest  and  sleep  through  the 
burning  hours  till  evening  shall  bring  the  time  for 
supper,  more  music,  and  dancing  carried  to  the  dawn. 
But  three  young  Venetian  gentlemen  and  three 
Venetian  ladies  prefer  to  leave  sleep  behind  the 
curtains  of  their  beds  and  wander  out  into  the  deep, 
inviting  garden  shade.  The  gardens  were  the  pride 
of  Asolo ;  and  these  six  people,  who  are  presently 
to  lose  themselves  in  the  labyrinth  of  Bembo's 
dialogue,  stroll  now  beneath  a  pergola  of  vines  that 
divided  the  garden  cross-wise.  The  shade  from  the 
woven  leaves  was  delicious  and  cool ;  on  either  side 
of  the  walk  ran  a  square-cut  hedge  of  juniper,  breast- 
high  only,  so  that  the  eye  might  take  in  all  the 
greenery  of  the  close.  There  were  other  walks 
bounded  by  well-trimmed  laurel  walls,  rising  high 
up,  and  at  their  summits  curling  slightly  over,  so 
as  to  throw  a  shadow  on  the  path  beneath.  Into 
this  garden  they  strolled — the  young  men  in  close- 
fitting  hose  of  bright  and  many-coloured  silks,  and 
short  black  cloaks ;  the  ladies  in  velvet  and  brocades 
of  gorgeous  dyes  and  tight-rolled  masses  of  golden 
hair :  a  globe  of  colour  moving  through  a  deep 
green  shade.  They  wandered  on,  rising  slowly 
uphill,  for  the  gardens  lay  behind  the  house  and 
towards  the  Alps,  until  they  came  to  a  lawn  of  fine 
and  velvety  grass,  studded  with  flowers,  where  the 
more  formal  garden  lost  itself.  Beyond  the  lawn 
VOL.  i.  19 


29o  CATERINA  CORNARO 

was  a  shrubbery  of  laurel  growing  as  it  chose ; 
through  this  thicket  a  pathway  led  into  a  grove  where 
the  silence  and  the  shade  alike  were  profound.  In 
the  middle  of  this  wood  a  clear  stream  bubbled  from 
the  living  rock,  welling  up  and  filling  a  basin  hol- 
lowed for  it  in  the  stone.  Over  the  lips  of  the  basin 
it  fell,  and  was  caught  in  a  runnel  of  marble  and  led, 
with  soft  murmur  and  bickerings  through  light  and 
shade,  down  to  the  gardens  which  it  watered  and 
kept  cool.  Here  by  this  fountain  the  three  ladies 
and  their  cavaliers  sat  down,  and,  after  some  slight 
coyness  not  quite  real,  spun  out  that  cobweb  of 
platonic  love  through  the  long  declining  afternoon.1 
The  whole  picture  recalls  the  very  spirit  of  Boccaccio's2 
introductions,  of  Poliziano's  ballate,  of  Giorgione  and 
his  garden  parties ;  it  is  a  "  never-ending  Decame- 
rone." 

For  Caterina  and  her  maids  we  may  hope,  how- 
ever, that  it  was  not  all  pure  platonism.  For  her 
court  was  full  of  guests  constantly  arriving  and 
departing ;  and  every  fifteenth  day  came  Pandolfo 
Malatesta,  lord  of  Rimini,  from  his  castle  of  Citta- 
della,  to  make  his  suit  to  Caterina  herself,  or,  as 
others  said,  to  win  the  love  of  her  waiting-maid 
Fiammetta.  And  her  own  family,  the  Cornaro,  were 
courting  Caterina  for  her  influence.  On  the  strength 
of  their  sister's  royalty  they  aspired  to  the  title  of 
princes ;  and  by  them  she  found  herself  forced  to 
arrange  a  match  between  one  of  her  nieces  and  a 
prince  of  the  house  of  Naples.3  But  Venice  watched 
this  ambition  with  a  jealous  eye.  She  held  that  the 
Cornaro  were  sufficiently  rewarded  by  the  knighthood 
of  Giorgio  and  by  the  cardinal's  hat  which  had  been 

1  See  Bembo,  Degli  Asolani,  lib.  i.  op.  class.  Ital.  No.  135 
(Milano:  1808). 

1  See  Boccaccio,  Sonnet  x.  p.  376  of  Sig.  Carducci's  edition  ; 
Rime  di  Cinb  d.  Pistoia  ed  altri  del  secolo  xiv.,  Barbera  (Firenze  : 
1862). 

3  Malipiero,  Annali  Veneti,  p.  612. 


AT  ASOLO  291 

procured  for  his  son.  Venice  would  not  permit  a 
private  family  to  assume  exceptional  rank,  and  admin- 
istered many  sharp  rebukes  to  Caterina,  warning  her 
to  live  content  with  that  state  of  life  to  which  it  had 
pleased  the  Republic  to  call  her,  and  to  cease  all 
thought  of  Cyprus,  round  which  her  fancy  and  her 
hopes  still  lingered.1 

The  queen  really  loved  Asolo,  her  gardens,  and 
her  court,  nor  ever  wished  to  leave  them,  summer  or 
winter.  Three  times  only  did  she  make  a  journey 
from  her  castle.  Once  when  the  weather  was  so  cold 
that  men  could  walk  from  Mestre  to  Venice  across 
the  lagoon,  the  rigour  of  winter  compelled  her  to 
return  to  her  palace  on  the  Grand  Canal.  Once  too, 
in  1497,  sne  Paid  a  visit  to  her  brother  Giorgio,  then 
podestd  in  Brescia.2  She  was  splendidly  and  regally 
received.  A  guard  of  forty  youths  met  her  outside 
the  town ;  on  the  close-fitting  hose  of  each  were 
blazoned  the  arms  of  Cornaro  and  Lusignan. 
Triumphs  and  allegorical  pageants  followed  :  Diana 
and  her  nymphs,  who  meet  a  winged  Cupid  who  sings 
to  them ;  but  the  nymphs  all  stay  their  ears,  and, 
falling  on  the  boy,  tear  his  wings  from  his  shoulders, 
as  they  do  in  Signorelli's  picture  in  the  National 
Gallery.  The  queen  entered  the  city  in  a  chariot 
of  state  drawn  by  four  white  horses  horned  like 
unicorns.  Jousts  by  torchlight  were  given  in  the 
evening,  and  the  jousters  marched  in  procession,  with 
helmets  on  their  heads  from  whose  crests  burst  flame. 
It  was  Caterina's  last  royal  ceremony,  and  it  was  con- 
tinued for  twelve  days;  then  the  queen  returned  to 
Asolo.  But  Venice  showed  herself  jealous  of  this 
play  at  mimic  royalty,  and  for  the  honour  then  done 
to  his  sister  Giorgio  was  soon  after  recalled  from 
Brescia. 

The  troubled  condition  of  the  mainland  which 
resulted  from  the  wars  of  the  League  of  Cambray 

1  Roman,  loc  cit.  p.  437,  note  I,  cap.  x.  April  3,  1510. 
*  Marin  Sanudo,  Diarii,  i.  741. 


292  CATERINA  CORNARO 

drove  the  queen  from  her  home  ;  Asolo  was  occupied 
by  the  troops  of  Maximilian.1  Caterina  went  to 
Venice  for  greater  safety,  and  died  there  on 
July  10,  1510,  fifty-six  years  old.3  Her  funeral 
displayed  as  much  magnificence  as  Venice,  on  the 
verge  of  ruin,  could  afford.  On  the  nth  of  the 
month  a  bridge  of  boats  was  made  across  the  Grand 
Canal  from  the  Cornaro  Palace  to  the  other  side. 
The  dead  queen  was  followed  by  the  patriarch,  the 
Signory,  the  vice-doge,  the  Archbishop  of  Spalato, 
and  an  immense  crowd  of  citizens  with  torches  in 
their  hands.  There  was  something  fitting  in  the 
manner  of  her  burial,  for  the  night  was  a  stormy 
one,  with  heavy  wind  and  rain.  On  her  coffin  lay 
the  crown  of  Cyprus — outwardly,  at  least,  Venice 
insisted  that  her  daughter  was  a  queen ;  but  inside 
her  body  lay  shrouded  in  the  habit  of  St.  Francis, 
with  cord  and  cowl  and  coarse  brown  cloak,  Caterina 
was  carried  to  the  Cornaro  chapel  in  the  Church  of 
the  Santi  Apostoli,  and  next  day  the  funeral  service 
was  performed.  Over  her  grave  Andrea  Navagero, 
poet,  scholar,  and  ambassador,  made  the  oration  that 
bade  farewell  to  this  unhappy  queen,  whose  beauty, 
goodness,  gentleness,  and  grace  were  unavailing  to 
save  her  from  the  tyrannous  cruelties  of  fate. 

1  The  queen's  property  was  confiscated  by  the  Imperial  Com- 
mander Leonardo  Trissino  on  June  10,  1509.  Paladini,  Asolo 
(Asolo:  1892),  p.  203. 

3  Bembo,  Historia  Veneta  (Basileae  :  1556),  lib.  x.  p.  417. 


The  Constitution  of  the  Venetian  Republic  and 
the  State  Archives1 

AMONG  the  archives  of  Europe  few,  if  any,  are  superior, 
in  historical  value  and  richness  of  detail,  to  the 
archives  of  the  Venetian  Republic  preserved  now  in 
the  monastery  of  the  Frari  at  Venice.  The  importance 
of  these  archives  is  due  to  three  causes  :  the  position 
of  the  Republic  in  the  history  of  Europe,  the  fulness 
of  the  archives  themselves,  and  the  remarkable  pre- 
servation and  order  which  distinguish  them,  in  spite 
of  the  many  dangers  and  vicissitudes  through  which 
they  have  passed. 

Venice  enjoyed  a  position  unique  among  the  states 
of  Europe,  for  two  reasons.  Until  the  discovery  of 
the  passage  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  she  was 
the  mart  of  Europe  in  all  commercial  dealings  with  the 
East — a  position  secured  to  her  by  her  geographical 
position  and  her  supremacy  in  the  Levant ;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  the  Republic  was  the  bulwark  of 
Europe  against  the  Turk.  These  are  the  two  dominant 
features  of  Venice  in  general  history ;  and  under  both 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  following  among  many  other  works  on  the 
archives  and  the  constitution :  Baschet,  Les  Archives  de  Venise 
(Paris:  1870)  and  Souvenirs  d'une  Mission  (Paris:  1857);  //  regio 
Archivio  Generate  di  Venezia  (Venice  :  1875);  The  Calendar  of  State 
Papers,  Venetian,  vol.  i.  ;  Sir  Thomas  Duffus  Hardy's  Report  on  the 
Archives  ;  Giannotti,  Delia  Republica  de>  Veneziani  (Firenze  :  1850) ; 
St.  Disdier,  La  Ville  et  Rtyublique  de  Venise  (Paris :  1680)  ;  Amelot 
de  la  Houssaye,  Histoire  du  Gouvemement  de  Venise  (Paris  :  1667)  ; 
Gasparo  Contarini,  De  Republica  Venetorum  (Lugd.  Batavorum  : 
1628) ;  Sandi,  Principi  di  Storia  Civile  della  Republica  di  Venezia 
(Venezia:  1755);  Orlandini,  Storia  della  Magistrature  Venete 
(Saggio,  Venezia  :  1898). 

293 


294       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

aspects  she  came  into  perpetual  contact  with  every 
European  power.  The  universal  importance  of  her 
position  is  faithfully  reflected  in  the  diplomatic  docu- 
ments contained  in  her  archives.  The  Republic  main- 
tained ambassadors  and  residents  at  every  court. 
These  men  were  among  the  most  subtle  and  accom- 
plished diplomatists  of  their  time,  and  the  government 
they  served  was  exacting  and  critical  to  the  highest 
degree.  The  result  is  that  the  despatches,  news- 
letters, and  reports  of  the  Venetian  diplomatic  agents 
form  a  varied,  brilliant,  and  singular  gallery  of  por- 
traits, both  of  persons  and  of  peoples.  There  is 
hardly  a  nation  in  Europe  that  will  not  find  its  history 
illustrated  by  the  papers  which  belong  to  the  Venetian 
Department  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Nor  are  the  papers  which  relate  to  the  home  govern- 
ment of  the  Republic  less  copious  and  valuable.  The 
governmental  machinery  of  Venice  embraced  upwards 
of  a  hundred  different  offices  exercising  separate  juris- 
dictions, which,  however,  frequently  appear  to  infringe 
on  each  other,  so  that  in  this  lapse  of  time  it  becomes 
difficult  to  determine  the  precise  province  of  each. 
This  multiplicity  of  offices  was  partly  due  to  the 
organic  evolution  of  the  state.  As  Venetian  commerce 
and  arms  extended,  new  machinery  was  created  for 
their  regulation.  But  there  was  a  further  profound 
political  reason  which  induced  the  Venetians  to  adopt 
this  complex  machinery  of  government.  The  great 
number  of  state  offices  made  it  possible  to  give  to  the 
large  majority  of  the  governing  class  a  direct  and 
responsible  share  in  the  life  and  organism  of  the  state, 
and  thus  helped  to  bind  the  patrician  caste  into  one 
living  and  organic  whole.  Each  magistracy  had  its 
own  series  of  documents,  the  daily  record  of  its  pro- 
ceedings :  in  these  we  find  the  whole  of  that  elaborate 
machinery  of  state  laid  bare  before  us  in  all  its  intricacy 
of  detail ;  and  we  are  enabled  to  study  the  construc- 
tion, the  origin,  development,  and  ossification,  of  one 
of  the  most  rigid  and  enduring  constitutions  that  the 


CONSERVATION   OF  THE  ARCHIVES    295 

world  has  ever  seen ;  a  constitution  so  strong  in  its 
component  parts,  so  compact  in  its  rib-work,  that  it 
sufficed  to  preserve  a  semblance  of  life  in  the  body  of 
the  Republic  long  after  the  heart  and  brain  had  ceased 
to  beat. 

Admirable  as  are  the  preservation  and  order  of 
these  masses  of  state  papers,  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  each  series,  each  magisterial  archive,  should  be 
complete.  There  are  many  broad  lacunae,  especially 
in  the  earlier  period,  which  must  ever  be  a  cause  for 
regret :  for  Venice  growing  is  a  more  attractive  and 
profitable  subject  than  Venice  dying.  During  the 
nine  hundred  and  eighty-seven  years  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Republic  held  its  seat  in  Venice,  the  state 
papers  passed  through  many  dangers  from  fire,  revo- 
lution, neglect,  or  carelessness.  When  we  recall  the 
fires  of  1230,  1479,  1574,  and  1577,  it  is  rather  matter 
for  congratulation  that  so  much  has  escaped,  than  for 
surprise  that  so  much  has  been  destroyed.  The  losses 
would,  undoubtedly,  have  been  much  more  severe  had 
all  the  papers  and  documents  been  preserved  in  one 
place,  i  as  they  are  now.  But  the  Venetians  stored 
the  archives  of  the  various  magistracies  either  at  the 
offices  of  those  magistrates,  or  in  some  public  building 
especially  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  The  secret 
chancellery,  which  was  always  an  object  of  great 
solicitude,  containing  as  it  did  all  the  more  private 
papers  of  the  state,  was  deposited  in  a  room  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  ducal  palace.  Many  of  the  criminal 
records  belonging  to  the  Council  of  Ten  were  stored 
in  the  Piombi  under  the  roof  of  the  palace ;  and  the 
famous  adventurer  Casanova  relates  how  he  beguiled 
some  of  his  prison  hours  by  reading  the  trial  of  a 
Venetian  nobleman,  which  he  found  among  other 
papers  piled  at  the  end  of  the  corridor  where  he  was 
allowed  to  take  exercise.  Soon  after  the  fall  of  the 
Republic,  the  following  disposition  of  the  papers  was 
made.  The  political  papers  were  stored  at  the  Scuola 
di  S.  Teodoro ;  the  judicial,  at  the  convent  of  S. 


296       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

Giovanni  Laterano;  the  financial,  at  S.  Provolo.  In 
the  year  1815  the  Austrian  government  resolved  to 
collect  and  arrange  all  state  papers  in  one  place.  The 
building  chosen  was  the  convent  of  the  Frari ;  and 
the  work  was  entrusted  to  Jacopo  Chiodo,  the  first 
director  of  the  archives.  The  scheme  suggested  by 
Chiodo  has  served  as  a  basis  for  the  arrangement  that 
has  been  already  carried  out,  or  is  still  in  hand. 

Under  the  Republic  it  was  natural  that  access  to 
important  diplomatic  papers  and  to  secrets  of  state 
should  be  granted  with  reserve,  and  only  to  persons 
especially  authorized  to  make  research.  The  directors 
appointed  by  the  Austrian  government  showed  a 
disposition  to  maintain  that  precedent ;  and  M.  Baschet 
relates  that  it  was  only  by  a  personal  appeal  to  the 
emperor  that  he  obtained  access  to  the  archives  of  the 
Ten.  The  Italian  government  allow  nearly  absolute 
liberty  of  search,  a  tax  being  imposed  for  the  examina- 
tion and  copying  of  notarial  documents  which  are  to 
be  produced  before  the  Law  Courts. 

Any  attempt  to  explain  the  archives  of  Venice  and 
to  display  their  contents  must  be  preceded  by  a  state- 
ment of  the  main  features  of  the  constitution  of  the 
Republic  upon  which  the  order  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  archives  are  based.  The  constitution  of 
Venice  has  frequently  been  likened  to  a  pyramid, 
with  the  Great  Council  for  its  base  and  the  doge  for 
apex.  The  figure  is  more  or  less  correct ;  but  it  is  a 
pyramid  that  has  been  broken  at  its  edges  by  time  and 
by  necessity.  The  political  body  was  originally  con- 
structed in  four  groups,  or  tiers — if  we  are  to  preserve 
the  pyramidal  simile — one  rising  above  the  other. 
These  four  tiers  were  the  Maggior  Consiglio  or  Great 
Council,  the  Lower  House ;  the  Pregadi  or  Senate, 
the  Upper  House ;  the  Collegio,  or  the  Cabinet ;  and 
the  doge.  The  famous  Council  of  Ten  and  its  equally 
famous  commission,  the  three  inquisitors  of  state,  did 
not  enter  into  the  original  scheme ;  they  are  an 
appendix  to  the  state,  an  intrusion,  a  break  in  the 


THE  GREAT  COUNCIL  297 

symmetry  of  the  pyramid.  Later  on  we  shall  explain 
their  construction  and  relation  to  the  main  body  of 
government.  For  the  present  we  leave  them  aside, 
and  confine  our  attention  to  the  four  departments  of 
the  Venetian  constitution  above  mentioned. 

The  Great  Council  did  not  assume  its  permanent 
form  and  place  in  the  Venetian  constitution  till  the 
year  1296.  At  that  date  the  famous  act,  known  as 
the  closing  of  the  Great  Council,  was  passed.  By 
that  act,  which  was  only  the  final  step  in  a  re- 
volution that  had  been  for  long  in  process,  those 
citizens  who  were  excluded  from  the  Great  Council 
remained  for  ever  outside  the  constitution ;  all 
functions  of  government  were  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  those  nobles  who  were  included  in  the 
council ;  the  constitution  of  the  Republic  was  stereo- 
typed as  a  rigid  oligarchy.  Previous  to  the  year  1296, 
a  great  council  had  existed,  created  first  in  the  reign 
of  Pietro  Ziani  (1172);  but  this  council  was  really 
democratic  in  character,  not  oligarchic ;  it  was  elected 
each  September,  and  its  members  were  chosen  from 
the  whole  body  of  the  citizens.  Earlier  still  than  the 
reign  of  Ziani,  the  population  used  to  meet  tumult- 
uously  and  express  their  opinion  upon  matters  of 
public  interest,  such  as  the  election  of  a  doge  or  a 
declaration  of  war,  first  in  the  Condone  under  their 
tribunes,  while  Venetia  was  still  a  confederation  of 
lagoon-islands ;  and  then  in  the  Arengo  under  their 
doge,  when  the  confederation  was  centralized  at 
Rialto.  But  of  these  assemblies  the  latter  was  dis- 
orderly and  irregular,  and  the  former  was  of  doubtful 
authority.  It  is  from  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council 
that  we  must  date  the  positive  establishment  of  the 
Venetian  oligarchy,  and  the  completion  of  that  con- 
stitution which  endured  for  five  hundred  years,  from 
1296  till  the  fall  of  the  Republic  in  1797. 

The  age  at  which  the  young  nobles  might  take  their 
seats  in  the  council — that  is  to  say,  might  enter  upon 
public  life — was  fixed  at  twenty-five,  except  in  the 


298       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

cases  of  the  Barbarelli,  or  thirty  nobles  between  the 
ages  of  twenty  and  twenty-five,  who  were  elected  by 
ballot  on  the  fourth  of  each  December,  St.  Barbara's 
day ;  and  in  the  case  of  those  who,  in  return  for 
money  advanced  to  the  state,  obtained  a  special  grace 
to  take  their  seats  before  their  twenty-fifth  year. 

The  chief  functions  of  the  Great  Council  were  the 
passing  of  laws  and  the  election  of  magistrates.  But 
in  process  of  time  the  legislative  duties  of  the  council 
were  almost  entirely  absorbed  by  the  Senate;  and 
the  Maggior  Consiglio  only  retained  its  distinguish- 
ing function,  the  election  of  almost  every  officer 
of  state,  from  the  doge  downwards.  The  large 
number  of  these  magistracies,  and  the  various  seasons 
of  the  year  at  which  they  fell  vacant,  engaged  the 
Great  Council  in  a  perpetual  series  of  elections.  It 
is  not  our  intention  to  explain  in  detail  the  elaborate 
process  by  which  the  Venetians  carried  out  their 
political  elections ;  such  an  explanation  would  carry 
us  beyond  our  scope,  which  is  to  state  the  position 
and  functions  of  each  member  in  the  constitution  of 
the  Republic.  But,  briefly,  the  process  was  this.  The 
law  required  either  two  or  four  candidates  for  every 
vacant  magistracy,  and  the  election  to  that  magistracy 
was  said  to  take  place  a  due  or  a  quattro  mani,  respec- 
tively. If  the  office  to  be  filled  required  quattro  mant, 
the  whole  body  of  the  Great  Council  balloted  for  four 
groups  of  nine  members  each,  who  were  chosen  by 
drawing  a  golden  ball  from  among  the  silver  ones  in 
the  balloting  urn.  Each  of  these  groups  retired  to  a 
separate  room,  and  there  each  group  nominated  one 
candidate  to  go  to  the  poll  for  the  vacant  office.  The 
names  of  the  four  candidates  were  then  presented  to 
the  council  and  balloted.  The  candidate  who  secured 
the  largest  number  of  votes,  above  the  half  of  those 
present,  was  elected  to  the  vacant  office.  Thus  the 
election  to  a  magistracy  was  a  triple  process ;  first, 
the  election  of  the  nominators,  then  the  election  of  the 
candidates,  and  finally  the  election  to  the  office. 


THE  SENATE  299 

The  Great  Council,  as  representing  the  whole  Re- 
public, possessed  certain  judicial  functions,  which 
were  used  on  rare  occasions  only,  when  the  state 
believed  itself  placed  in  grave  danger  through  the 
fault  of  its  commanders.  The  famous  case  of  Vettor 
Pisani,  after  his  defeat  at  Pola,  in  1379,  and  the  case 
of  Antonio  Grimani,  in  the  year  1499,  were  both  sent 
to  the  Great  Council,  who  passed  sentence  on  those 
generals.  But,  broadly  speaking,  the  judicial  functions 
of  the  Maggior  Consiglio  hardly  existed,  its  legislative 
functions  dwindled  away  and  were  absorbed  by  the 
Senate,  and  its  chief  duty  and  prerogative  lay  in  the 
election  to  almost  every  state  official. 

Coming  now  to  the  second  tier  in  the  pyramid  of 
the  constitution,  the  Senate,  or  Pregadi — the  invited — 
we  find  that  the  Senate  proper  was  composed  of  sixty 
members,  elected  in  the  Great  Council,  six  at  a  time. 
The  elections  took  place  once  a  week,  and  were  so 
arranged  that  they  should  be  complete  by  the  first 
of  October  in  each  year.  In  addition  to  the  Senate 
proper,  another  body  of  sixty,  called  the  Zonta,  or 
addition,  was  elected  by  the  outgoing  Senate  at  the 
close  of  its  year  of  office ;  but  it  was  necessary  that 
the  names  of  the  Zonta  should  be  approved  by  the 
Great  Council  before  their  election  was  valid.  The 
Senate  and  the  Zonta  together  formed  one  hundred 
and  twenty  members ;  and  besides  these,  the  doge, 
his  six  councillors,  the  Council  of  Ten,  the  supreme 
court  of  appeal,  and  many  special  magistrates,  who 
presided  over  departments  of  finance,  customs,  and 
justice,  belonged  ex  officio  to  the  Senate,  and  brought 
the  number  of  votes  up  to  two  hundred  and  forty-six. 
Further,  fifty-one  magistrates  of  minor  departments 
also  sat,  with  the  right  to  debate,  but  without  the 
right  to  vote. 

The  Senate  was  the  real  core  of  the  administration. 
The  presence,  ex  officio,  of  so  many  and  such  various 
officers  of  state  sufficiently  indicates  the  wide  field 
which  was  covered  by  the  authority  of  the  Pregadi. 


300 

The  large  number  of  the  senatorial  body,  and  the 
diversity  of  subjects  with  which  it  dealt,  required  that 
business  should  be  carried  on  with  parsimony  of  time 
and  precision  of  method ;  and  therefore  private 
members  were  restricted  to  the  right  of  debate.  Only 
the  doge,  his  councillors,  the  savii  grandi,  and  the 
savii  di  terra  ferma  had  the  right  to  move  the  Senate ; 
and  their  propositions  related  to  peace,  war,  foreign 
affairs,  instructions  to  ambassadors  and  representatives 
of  foreign  courts,  to  commercial  treaties,  finance,  and 
home  legislation.  The  various  measures  were  spoken 
to  by  their  proposers,  and  by  the  magistrates  whose 
offices  they  affected.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Great 
Council,  the  Senate  also  on  rare  occasions  exercised 
judicial  functions.  It  was  in  the  discretion  of  the 
College  to  send  a  faulty  commander  for  trial  either 
to  the  Great  Council  or  to  the  Senate ;  but  in  that 
case  the  charge  must  be  one  of  negligence  or  mis- 
judgment  ;  if  the  charge  implied  treason,  it  was  taken 
before  the  Council  of  Ten.  A  few  of  the  higher 
officers  of  state  were  elected  in  the  Senate,  among 
them  the  savii  grandi  and  the  savii  di  terra  ferma,  and 
the  admiral  of  the  fleet.  The  functions  of  the  Senate 
were  legislative,  judicial,  and  elective.  But  just  as 
the  Great  Council  was  pre-eminently  the  elective 
body,  so  the  Senate  was  pre-eminently  the  legislative 
body  in  the  constitution  of  Venice. 

The  Collegio,  or  Cabinet  of  Ministers,  formed  the 
third  tier  in  the  pyramid.  The  College  was  composed 
of  the  following  members  :  the  doge,  his  six  coun- 
cillors, and  the  three  chiefs  of  the  court  of  appeal ; 
these  ten  persons  formed  the  collegio  minore,  or 
serenissima  signoria ;  in  addition  to  these  there  were 
the  six  savii  grandi,  the  five  savii  di  terra  ferma,  and 
the  five  savii  da  mar— a  body  of  twenty-six  persons  in 
all,  forming  the  College.  Beginning  with  the  lowest 
in  rank,  the  savii  agli  ordini,  or  da  mar,  were,  as  their 
name  implies,  a  Board  of  Admiralty ;  but  they  acted 
in  that  capacity  under  the  orders  of  the  savii  grandi, 


THE  COLLEGIO  301 

upon  whom  the  naval  affairs  of  the  Republic  imme- 
diately depended.  The  savii  agli  ordini  had  a  vote 
but  no  voice  in  the  College ;  this  post  was  given,  for 
the  most  part,  to  young  and  promising  politicians ; 
it  was  a  training-school  for  statesmen  :  "  Officio  loro," 
says  Giannotti,  "  e  tacere  ed  ascoltare."  The  office 
lasted  for  six  months  only ;  and  so  there  was  a 
constant  stream  of  young  men  passing  through  the 
political  school,  and  becoming  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  affairs  of  the  Republic  and  the  methods  of 
government.  How  excellent  that  school  must  have 
been  will  become  apparent  as  we  proceed  to  note  the 
functions  of  the  College,  of  which  the  savii  agli  ordini 
formed  a  silent  part. 

Next  in  order  above  the  savii  agli  ordini  came  the 
savii  di  terra  ferma.  This  board  was  composed  of  five 
members  :  the  savio  alia  scrittura,  or  minister  for  war ; 
the  savio  cassier,  or  chancellor  of  the  exchequer ;  the 
savio  alle  ordinanze,  or  minister  for  the  native  militia 
in  the  cities  or  the  mainland ;  the  savio  ai  da  mo,  or 
minister  for  the  execution  of  all  measures  voted 
urgent ;  the  savio  ai  ceremoniali,  or  minister  for  cere- 
monies of  state.  These  savii  di  terra  ferma,  like  the 
savii  agli  ordini,  held  office  for  six  months  only. 

The  six  savii  grandi,  who  came  above  the  savii  di 
terra  ferma,  superintended  the  actions  of  the  two 
boards  below  them,  and,  if  necessary,  issued  orders 
which  would  override  those  of  the  other  ministers. 
They  were,  in  fact,  the  responsible  directors  of  the 
state.  The  savii  grandi  were  required  to  prepare  all 
business  to  be  laid  before  the  College,  where  it  was 
first  discussed  and  arranged  before  being  submitted  to 
the  Senate  for  approval.  To  facilitate  this  labour  of 
preparation,  each  of  the  savii  grandi  took  a  week  in 
turn,  and  the  savio  of  the  week  was,  in  fact,  prime 
minister  of  Venice.  It  was  he  who  read  despatches, 
granted  audiences  to  ambassadors,  and  prepared 
official  replies.  The  doge  presided  in  the  College,  it 
is  true  ;  but  it  was  the  savio  of  the  week  who  opened 


302       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

the  business,  and  suggested  the  various  measures  to 
be  adopted. 

Besides  these  boards  of  savii,  the  College  included 
the  ducal  councillors  and  the  three  chiefs  of  the  court 
of  appeal.  We  shall  speak  of  these  latter  when  we 
come  to  the  judicial  department  of  the  constitution. 
The  office  of  ducal  councillor  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
venerable  in  Venice.  These  six  men  held,  as  it  were, 
the  ducal  honours  and  functions  in  commission  ;  they 
embodied  the  authority  of  the  doge  to  such  an  extent, 
that  without  their  presence  he  could  not  act  ;  he 
became  a  nonentity  unless  supported  by  four  at  least 
of  his  council ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  absence 
of  the  doge  in  no  way  diminished  the  authority  of  the 
ducal  councillors.  For  example,  the  doge  without 
his  council  could  not  preside,  neither  in  the  Maggior 
Consiglio,  nor  in  the  Senate,  nor  in  the  College  ;  but 
four  ducal  councillors  had  the  power  to  preside  with- 
out the  doge.  The  doge  might  not  open  despatches 
except  in  the  presence  of  his  council,  but  his  council 
might  open  despatches  in  the  absence  of  the  doge. 
Yet,  great  as  were  the  external  honours  of  the  ducal 
councillors,  the  office  was  rather  ornamental  than 
important.  It  was  the  savii  grandi  who  were  the 
directing  spirit  through  all  the  multitudinous  affairs 
of  the  College. 

As  we  have  seen,  those  affairs  embraced  the  whole 
field  of  government,  except  the  field  of  justice.  The 
College  had  no  judicial  functions,  nor  did  it  legislate. 
As  the  Maggior  Consiglio  was  the  elective  member, 
and  the  Senate  the  legislative,  so  the  College  was  the 
initiative  and  executive  member  in  the  state.  The 
College  proposed  measures  which  became  law  in  the 
Senate;  and  the  execution  of  those  laws  was  entrusted 
to  the  College,  which  had  the  machinery  of  state  at  its 
disposal.  It  is  this  right  of  initiating  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  College  ;  and  it  is  just  upon  this  point 
that  the  ducal  councillors  appear  to  have  a  slight 
pre-eminence ;  for  the  doge,  his  council,  and  the  savii 


THE  DOGE  303 

alone  had  the  right  to  initiate  in  the  Senate ;  the  doge, 
his  council,  and  the  chiefs  of  the  Ten  alone  had  the 
right  to  initiate  in  the  Council  of  Ten  ;  the  doge  and 
his  council  alone  had  the  right  to  initiate  in  the 
Maggior  Consiglio.  The  doge  and  his  council  alone 
move  through  all  departments  of  government,  pre- 
siding and  initiating,  and  embodying  the  spirit  of  the 
Republic  ;  and  yet  in  no  case  is  their  power  great ;  for 
the  savii  had  more  influence  in  the  Senate,  the  chiefs 
of  the  Ten  in  the  Council  of  Ten ;  and  the  Great 
Council,  where  the  doge  and  his  councillors  had  the 
field  to  themselves,  was  of  little  importance  in  the 
direction  of  affairs. 

At  the  apex  of  the  constitutional  pyramid  we  find 
the  doge.1  The  doge  also  had  his  distinctive  functions 
in  the  state ;  his  duties  were  ornamental  rather  than 
administrative.  Though  all  the  acts  of  the  government 
were  executed  in  his  name,  laws  passed,  despatches 
sent,  treaties  made,  and  war  declared,  yet  it  is  not  in 
these  departments  that  the  doge  stands  pre-eminent ; 
it  is  throughout  the  pomp  and  display  of  the  Republic 
that  he  is  supreme ;  and  the  archive  wherein  his  glory 
shows  most  brightly  is  the  Ceremoniali. 

The  doge  was  elected  for  life.  When  a  doge  died, 
the  eldest  ducal  councillor  filled  the  office  of  vice-doge 
until  the  election  of  the  new  prince.  A  waxen  image 
of  the  deceased  doge  was  laid  out  in  the  chamber  of 
the  Piovego,  on  the  first  floor  of  the  ducal  palace, 
dressed  in  robes  of  state,  the  mantle  of  cloth  of  gold, 
and  the  ducal  biretta.  Twenty  Venetian  noblemen 
were  appointed  to  attend  in  the  chapelle  ardente.  On 
the  third  day  the  funeral  ceremonies  took  place ;  and 
the  Great  Council  on  the  same  day  elected  the  officers 
who  were  to  revise  the  coronation  oath,  and  to  gender 
its  provisions  more  stringent  if  the  conduct  of  the 
deceased  had  revealed  any  point  where  a  future  doge 
could  exercise  even  the  smallest  independence  in 
constitutional  matters.  At  the  same  time  the  Council 
1  See  Checchetti,  //  Doge  di  Venezia  (Venezia :  1864). 


304       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

elected  another  body  of  officers,  who  were  required  to 
examine  the  conduct  of  the  late  doge,  and,  if  he  had 
violated  his  coronation  oath,  his  heirs  paid  the  penalty 
by  a  fine.  Immediately  after  the  appointment  of  these 
officers,  the  Maggior  Consiglio  proceeded  to  create  the 
forty-one  electors  to  the  dukedom.  The  process  of 
election  was  long  and  intricate,  and  occupied  five  days 
at  the  least ;  for  there  was  a  quintuple  series  of  ballots 
and  votings  to  be  concluded  before  the  forty-one  were 
finally  chosen.  When  the  forty-one  noblemen  had 
been  appointed,  they  were  taken  to  a  chamber  specially 
prepared  for  them,  where,  as  in  the  case  of  a  papal 
election,  they  were  obliged  to  stay  until  they  had 
determined  upon  the  new  doge.  They  were  bound 
by  oath  never  to  reveal  what  took  place  inside  this 
election  chamber.  But  that  oath  was  not  always 
observed  in  the  spirit ;  and  memoranda  of  certain 
proceedings  of  the  forty-one  are  still  preserved  in  the 
private  archives  of  the  Marcello  family.  The  first  step 
was  to  elect  three  priors,  or  presidents,  and  two 
secretaries.  The  presidents  took  their  seats  at  a 
table,  on  which  stood  a  ballot-box  and  an  urn.  The 
secretaries  gave  to  every  elector  a  slip  of  paper,  upon 
which  each  one  wrote  the  name  of  the  man  whom  he 
proposed  as  doge.  The  forty-one  slips  of  paper  were 
then  placed  in  the  urn,  and  one  was  drawn  out  at 
hazard.  If  the  noble  whose  name  was  written  upon 
the  slip  chanced  to  be  an  elector,  he  was  required  to 
withdraw.  Then  each  of  the  electors  was  at  liberty 
to  attack  the  candidate,  to  point  out  defects  and  recall 
misdeeds.1  These  hostile  criticisms,  which  covered 
the  whole  of  a  candidate's  private  life,  his  physical 
qualities,  and  his  public  conduct,  were  written  down 
by  the  secretaries,  and  the  candidate  was  recalled. 
The  objections  urged  against  him  were  read  over  to 
the  aspirant,  without  the  names  of  the  urgers 
appearing,  and  he  was  invited  to  defend  himself. 
Attack  and  defence  continued  till  no  further  criticisms 
1  See  the  Marcello  MS. 


THE  DOGE  305 

were  offered,  and  then  the  name  of  the  candidate  was 
balloted  before  the  priors.  If  it  received  twenty-five 
favourable  votes,  its  owner  was  declared  doge ;  if  less 
than  twenty-five,  a  fresh  name  was  drawn  from  the 
urn,  and  the  whole  process  was  repeated  until  some 
candidate  secured  the  necessary  five-and-twenty  votes. 
As  soon  as  this  issue  was  reached,  the  Signoria  was 
informed  of  the  result,  and  the  new  doge,  attended 
by  the  electors,  descended  to  St.  Mark's,  where,  from 
the  pulpit  on  the  left  side  of  the  choir,  the  prince  was 
shown  to  the  people,  and  where,  before  the  high  altar, 
he  took  the  coronation  oath  and  received  the  standard 
of  St.  Mark.  The  great  doors  of  the  Basilica  were 
then  thrown  open,  and  the  doge  was  carried  in 
procession  round  the  piazza,  scattering  coin  from  the 
pozzetto,  or  kind  of  portable  pulpit  in  which  he  was 
borne  on  the  shoulders  of  the  arsenal  hands,  and 
returned  to  the  Porta  della  Carta.  At  the  top  of  the 
Giants'  Stair  the  eldest  ducal  councillor  placed  the 
biretta  on  his  head,  and  he  was  brought  to  the  Sala 
del  Piovego,  where  the  late  doge  had  lain  in  state,  and 
where  he  too  would  one  day  come — a  fact  that  was 
impressed  upon  the  dogaressa  too,  if  there  were  one, 
in  language  quite  brutal  in  its  frankness  :  "  Your 
Serenity,"  thus  spoke  the  ducal  councillor,  "  has  come 
here  in  the  pride  of  life  to  take  possession  of  the 
Palace ;  but  I  warn  you  that  when  dead  your  brains, 
eyes,  and  bowels  will  be  removed.  You  will  be 
brought  here  to  this  very  spot,  and  here  you  will  lie  for 
three  days  before  they  bury  you."1  Then  the  doge 
retired  to  his  private  apartment,  and  the  ceremony  of 
election  closed. 

As  we  have  already  observed,  the  position  of  the 
prince  in  the  Republic  of  Venice  was  almost  purely 
ornamental.  The  doge  presided,  either  in  person  or 
by  commission  through  his  councillors,  at  every 
council  of  state;  he  presided,  however,  not  as  a 
guiding  and  deliberating  chief,  but  as  a  symbol  of  the 
1  See  Molmenti,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  569. 

VOL.   I.  20 


306       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

majesty  of  Venice.  He  is  there  not  as  an  individual,  a 
personality,  but  as  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an 
idea,  the  idea  of  the  Venetian  oligarchy.  The  history 
of  the  personal  authority  of  the  doge  falls  into  three 
periods.  A  period  of  great  vigour  and  almost  despotic 
power  dates  from  the  foundation  of  the  dukedom,  in 
the  year  697,  down  to  the  reign  of  Pietro  Ziani  in  1 172. 
During  this  first  period  the  ducal  authority  showed  a 
tendency  to  become  concentrated  and  almost  hereditary 
in  the  hands  of  one  or  two  leading  families.  For 
example,  we  have  seven  doges  of  the  Particiaco  house, 
five  doges  of  the  Candiani,  and  three  of  the  Orseoli. 
But  the  rivalry  and  balanced  power  of  these  great 
families  eventually  exhausted  one  another,  and  pre- 
served the  dukedom  of  Venice  from  ever  becoming  a 
kingdom.  A  second  period  extends  from  the  year 
1172  down  to  1457,  and  is  marked  by  the  emergence 
of  the  great  commercial  houses,  and  the  development 
of  the  oligarchy  upon  the  basis  of  a  Great  Council. 
The  aristocracy  during  this  period  were  engaged  in 
excluding  the  people  from  any  share  in  the  govern- 
ment, and  in  curbing  and  finally  crushing  the  authority 
of  the  doge.  The  steps  in  this  process  are  indicated 
by  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council,  the  revolution  of 
Tiepolo,  the  trials  of  Marino  Falier,  Lorenzo  Celsi, 
and  the  Foscari.  The  third  period  covers  what 
remains  of  the  Republic,  from  1457  down  to  1797. 
During  this  period  the  doge  was  little  other  than  the 
figure-head  of  the  Republic  ;  the  point  of  least  weight 
and  greatest  splendour ;  the  brilliant  apex  to  the 
pyramid  of  the  Venetian  constitution. 

So  far,  then,  we  have  examined  the  four  tiers  in  the 
original  structure  of  the  constitution,  the  doge,  the 
College,  the  Senate,  and  the  Great  Council ;  and  we 
have  seen  that,  broadly  speaking,  these  were,  respec- 
tively, ornamental,  initiative  and  executive,  legislative 
and  elective.  But  this  pyramid  of  the  constitution 
was  not  perfectly  symmetrical ;  its  edges  were  broken. 
This  interruption  of  outline  was  caused  by  the  Council 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TEN  307 

of  Ten.  The  exact  position  in  the  Venetian  con- 
stitution occupied  by  this  famous  council,  and  its 
relation  to  the  other  members  of  the  government, 
have  proved  a  constant  source  of  difficulty  and  error 
to  students  of  Venetian  history.  Leaving  aside  the 
question  whether  we  can  find  traces  of  a  Council  of 
Ten  earlier  than  the  conspiracy  of  Tiepolo,  it  is  still 
possible  for  us  to  indicate  the  constitutional  necessity 
which  called  that  council  into  existence.  As  we  have 
pointed  out,  the  College  could  not  act  on  its  own 
responsibility  without  the  Senate ;  the  Senate  could 
not  initiate  without  the  College,  for  the  preparation  of 
all  affairs  passed  through  the  hands  of  the  College. 
To  establish  connection  between  these  two  branches 
of  the  administration  was  a  process  that  required 
some  time ;  it  could  not  be  done  swiftly  and  secretly. 
In  all  crises  of  political  importance,  whether  home  or 
foreign,  some  instrument,  more  expeditious  than  the 
Senate,  was  required  to  sanction  the  propositions  of 
the  College.  That  instrument,  acting  swiftly  and 
secretly,  with  a  speed  and  secrecy  impossible  in  so 
large  a  body  as  the  Senate,  was  created  with  the 
Council  of  Ten.  The  Ten  were  an  extraordinary 
magistracy,  devised  to  meet  unexpected  pressure  upon 
the  ordinary  machine  of  government.  The  history  of 
the  emergence  of  the  Ten  proves  this  view.  Without 
determining  whether  the  council  existed  previous  to 
the  year  1310,  we  may  take  that  year  as  the  date  of  its 
first  appearance  as  a  potent  element  in  the  state.  The 
rebellion  of  Tiepolo  and  Querini,  an  aristocratic  revolt 
against  the  growing  power  of  the  new  commercial 
nobility,  paralyzed  the  ordinary  machinery  of  state, 
and  revealed  the  danger  inherent  in  a  large  and  slow- 
moving  body  of  rulers.  The  Ten  were  called  to  power 
by  the  Venetians,  just  as  the  Romans  created  the 
dictatorship,  in  order  to  save  the  state  in  a  dangerous 
crisis. 

The  place  of  the  Ten  in  the  constitutional  structure 
is  below  the  College  and   parallel  with  the   Senate. 


Below  the  College  the  administration  bifurcates ;  the 
ordinary  course  of  business  flows  through  the  Senate, 
the  extraordinary  through  the  Ten.  The  Ten 
possessed  an  authority  equal  to  that  of  the  Senate  ;  the 
choice  of  which  instrument  should  be  used  rested  with 
the  College.  The  Ten  appeared  to  be  of  more  im- 
portance than  the  Senate,  solely  because  they  were 
used  upon  more  critical  and  dramatic  occasions. 
Wherever  the  machinery  of  the  College  and  Senate 
moves  too  slowly,  we  find  the  swifter  machinery  of 
the  College  and  the  Ten  in  motion.  And  so  not  only 
in  political  affairs,  home  and  foreign,  but  also  in 
affairs  financial  and  judicial,  the  Council  of  Ten  takes 
its  part.  The  Ten,  as  being  the  readier  instrument 
to  the  hands  of  the  College,  gradually  absorbed  more 
and  more  of  the  functions  which  originally  belonged 
to  the  Senate.  This  process  of  absorption,  and  the 
extension  of  the  province  of  the  Ten,  is  marked  by 
the  establishment  of  its  sub-commissions,  which  took 
their  place  in  every  department  side  by  side  with  the 
delegations  of  the  Senate  and  the  ordinary  magistrates. 
In  politics  and  foreign  affairs  there  is  the  famous  office 
of  the  three  inquisitors  of  state.  In  the  region  of 
justice  all  cases  of  treason  and  coining,  and  certain 
cases  of  outrage  on  public  morals,  came  before  the 
Ten ;  and  it  was  always  open  to  the  College  to  remove 
a  case  from  the  ordinary  courts  to  the  Ten,  when 
state  reasons  rendered  it  expedient  to  do  so.  In  the 
police  department  the  Esecutori  contro  la  Bestemmia, 
and  in  finance  the  Camerlenghi,  were  officers  of  that 
council.  In  the  war  office  the  artillery  was  under 
their  control ;  and  in  the  arsenal  certain  galleys, 
marked  c.x.,  were  always  at  their  disposal. 

These  five  great  members  of  the  state,  four  regular 
and  one  irregular,  formed  the  political  and  legislative 
departments  of  the  Venetian  government.  It  remains 
now  to  give  a  brief  account  of  the  judicial  machinery 
of  the  Republic  before  proceeding  to  examine  the 
papers  which  belong  to  these  various  departments. 


JUSTICE  309 

In  the  administration  of  justice  all  cases,  criminal  as 
well  as  civil,  were  broadly  divided  into  cases  arising 
in  the  city  itself,  di  dentro ,  and  cases  arising  on  the 
mainland  or  elsewhere  throughout  the  Dominion, 
known  as  cases  di  fuori.  In  Dalmatia,  the  Levant, 
and  on  the  mainland,  justice  was  administered,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  officers  who  bore  most  frequently 
the  title  of  rector.  In  Venice  cases  were  tried,  in  the 
first  instance,  before  various  special  courts,  each 
having  jurisdiction  in  certain  cases  only.  Among 
these  courts  we  may  mention  the  police  courts  of 
the  signori  di  notte  and  the  cinque  alia  pace;  the 
court  of  the  Piovego,  which  decided  cases  of  contract ; 
the  sanitary  court,  the  Jews'  court,  the  Strangers' 
court.  From  all  these  courts  of  first  instance,  in  the 
Dominion  as  well  as  in  Venice,  there  was  an  appeal 
to  the  supreme  courts.  The  courts  of  appeal  were 
four  in  number :  the  quarantia  criminale,  the  quarantia 
vecchia  civile,  the  quarantia  nuova  civile,  and  the 
collegio  delle  biade.  To  begin  with  the  lowest  in 
authority,  the  collegio  delle  biade  was  a  court  com- 
posed of  twenty-two  judges,  whose  duty  was  to  try 
civil  cases  on  appeal,  both  di  dentro  and  di  fuori,  in 
which  the  value  at  stake  stood  between  fifty  and  three 
hundred  ducats.  The  cases  di  dentro  and  the  cases 
di  fuori  were  heard  by  this  court  in  alternate  months. 
As  the  court  was  composed  of  twenty-two  members, 
it  might  be  equally  divided;  in  that  case  the  cause 
was  sent  up  to  the  appeal  courts  above ;  to  the 
quarantia  vecchia,  if  it  were  an  appeal  di  dentro;  to 
the  quarantia  nuova,  if  it  were  an  appeal  di  fuori. 

The  quarantia  vecchia  civile  and  the  quarantia  nuova 
civile  were  two  courts,  composed  of  forty  judges  each, 
whose  duties  were  to  try  appeal  cases  where  the  stake 
stood  above  the  value  of  three  hundred  ducats.  Cases 
di  dentro  went  before  the  old  court,  cases  di  fuori 
were  heard  in  the  new  court.  The  forty  judges  of 
the  quarantia  nuova  were  elected  in  the  Great  Council ; 
they  were  required  to  be  above  the  age  of  thirty. 


510       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

These  forty  judges  served  eight  months  in  the 
quarantia  nuova,  and  then  moved  on  to  the  quarantia 
vecchia,  where  they  served  a  second  eight  months; 
they  then  passed  into  the  quarantia  criminale  for  a 
third  period  of  eight  months.  The  Great  Council 
elected  a  new  quarantia  nuova  every  eight  months; 
and  a  nobleman's  term  of  judicial  service  lasted 
for  twenty-four  months,  in  all;  after  which  he  was 
ineligible  for  re-election  till  eight  months  had  elapsed. 
If  the  new  court  were  equally  divided  on  a  case  of 
appeal,  the  cause  passed  into  the  old  court,  and  vice 
versa ;  if  the  courts,  upon  this  second  hearing,  were 
still  equally  divided,  the  case  was  sent  up  to  the 
Senate,  upon  a  motion  made  in  the  Great  Council. 

The  quarantia  criminale  tried  all  criminal  cases  of 
appeal,  both  di  dentro  and  di  fuori;  but  whereas  the 
two  other  quarantie  were  purely  courts  of  appeal,  the 
quarantia  criminale  had  the  power  to  cite  criminal 
cases  before  it  in  the  first  instance.  The  criminal 
appeal  court  was  the  most  ancient  and  honourable 
court  in  Venice ;  its  three  presidents  sat  ex  officio 
in  the  Collegio,  and  were  members  of  the  Signoria, 
accompanying  the  doge  whenever  he  presided  at  any 
council,  and  embodying  and  representing  the  spirit 
of  Justice  in  the  Venetian  constitution.  The  three 
presidents  of  the  criminal  court  held  their  seats  in  the 
Signoria  for  two  months  at  a  ^time,  and  were  then 
succeeded  by  other  three.  During  their  absence  from 
their  own  court  their  place  was  taken  by  three 
ducal  councillors,  called  the  consiglieri  da  basso,  who 
represented  the  doge  by  the  side  of  Justice,  as  the 
presidents  represented  Justice  by  the  side  of  the  doge. 

Each  of  the  three  quarantie  had  three  officials 
permanently  attached  to  the  court  for  the  purpose  of 
preparing  and  explaining  the  case  to  be  submitted  to 
the  forty  judges.  The  officers  of  the  criminal  court 
were  called  the  avvogadori  di  commun ;  those  of  the 
old  civil  court  were  called  auditori  vecchi ;  those  of 
the  new  civil  court  were  called  auditori  nuovi.  If  a 


JUSTICE  311 

suitor  wished  to  appeal  against  the  decision  of  a  rector 
in  a  civil  suit,  he  came  to  Venice  and  saw  the  auditori 
nuovi.  They  cited  both  parties  before  them,  and  heard 
the  case  exactly  as  it  had  been  pleaded  before  the 
rector.  If  one  or  more  of  the  auditori  held  that 
the  appeal  ought  to  lie,  then,  supposing  the  value  in 
dispute  to  be  below  fifty  ducats,  the  auditori  themselves 
heard  the  case ;  but  if  the  value  was  above  fifty  and 
under  three  hundred  ducats,  the  case  was  sent  to  the 
collegio  delle  biade ;  if  the  value  exceeded  three 
hundred  ducats,  the  case  went  before  the  quarantia 
nuova.  The  appellant  caused  the  clerk  of  the  court 
to  enter  his  case  on  the  list  in  pursuance  of  an  order 
from  the  auditori ;  and  the  cases  were  taken  in  order  of 
date,  except  cases  between  members  of  a  family,  or 
cases  affecting  a  ward  or  perishable  goods,  and  these 
had  the  precedence.  The  presidents  were  bound  to 
yield  the  court  to  the  appellant  as  soon  as  possible ; 
and  when  the  case  had  been  called  on,  it  might  not 
occupy  more  than  three  days.  The  auditori  who  had 
allowed  the  appeal  were  bound  to  defend  it  before 
the  court,  and  to  show  reason  why  they  had  permitted 
the  court  to  be  moved.  No  advocate  might  speak  for 
more  than  an  hour  and  a  half  measured  by  a  sand- 
glass ;  but  that  hour  and  a  half  did  not  include  the 
time  occupied  in  reading  papers.  When  the  pleadings 
were  closed,  the  court  arrived  at  its  judgment  by  vote. 
Three  kinds  of  vote  were  possible  :  the  vote  tagliare, 
to  quash  the  judgment  of  the  court  below ;  the  vote 
lodare,  to  confirm  that  judgment ;  or  the  vote  non 
sinceri,  undecided.  If  the  votes  tagliare  exceeded  the 
votes  lodare  and  non  sinceri  taken  together,  the  case 
was  sent  down  again  to  the  original  court.  If  the 
votes  lodare  exceeded  the  votes  tagliare  and  non  sinceri, 
the  judgment  of  the  court  was  confirmed.  But  if 
neither  of  these  results  was  reached,  the  court  heard 
the  case  again,  minus  the  non  sinceri  voters.  This 
same  method  of  procedure  was  observed  in  the  other 
quarantie ;  but  if  the  quarantia  criminale  quashed  a 


3i2       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

judgment,  the  case  was  not  sent  down  to  the  original 
court ;  the  quarantia  itself  passed  the  final  sentence. 

In  many  cases  appeal,  which  implied  a  journey  to 
Venice,  was  too  expensive  for  the  poor  of  the  distant 
provinces.  To  meet  this  difficulty  the  auditori  nuovi 
were  obliged  to  go  circuit  every  two  years  through 
the  mainland  towns,  and  three  sindici  da  mar  through 
the  towns  of  Dalmatia,  Greece,  and  the  Levant,  hearing 
appeals  and  citing  them  to  Venice  when  necessary. 

The  arrangements  for  the  pay  of  justice  were  both 
simple  and  efficient.  The  members  of  the  criminal 
forty  received  two-thirds  of  a  ducat,  and  the  members 
of  the  other  forties  received  one-third  of  a  ducat  each 
every  time  they  sat.  The  avvogadori,  who  had  charge 
of  the  criminal  cases,  were  paid  a  fixed  sum  yearly 
out  of  fines  and  confiscations.  In  civil  cases  the 
plaintiff  paid  to  the  judge  of  first  instance  a  certain 
amount  per  cent  on  the  value  at  issue.  If  he 
appealed,  he  paid  the  same  amount  again  to  the 
auditori.  If  he  won  his  appeal,  he  recovered  from 
the  judge  of  first  instance,  who  was  therefore  paid  for 
sound  judgments  only ;  if  he  lost  his  appeal,  he 
recovered  from  the  auditori,  who  were  thus  refused 
payment  for  sending  a  case  before  the  court  which 
the  forty  judges  ignored ;  and  this  regulation  served 
to  protect  the  court  of  appeal  from  abuse ;  for 
frivolous  appeals  brought  no  pay  to  the  auditori,  and 
were  sure  to  be  disallowed  by  them  at  the  outset. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  in  the  Venetian 
constitution  is  the  infinite  subdivision  of  government, 
and  the  number  of  offices  to  be  filled.  Nobles  alone 
were  eligible  for  the  majority  of  these  offices,  and  if 
we  consider  how  small  a  body  the  Great  Council 
really  was,  it  is  clear  that  the  larger  number  of 
Venetian  noblemen  must  have  been  employed  in  the 
service  of  the  state  at  some  time  in  their  lives.  The 
great  political  and  administrative  activity  which  reigned 
inside  the  comparatively  small  body  that  formed  the 
ruling  caste,  as  compared  with  the  absolute  stagnation 


POLITICAL  TRAINING  313 

and  quiet  which  marked  the  life  of  the  ordinary 
citizen,  is  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  points  in  the 
history  of  Venice.  Every  noble  above  the  age  of 
twenty-five  was  a  member  of  the  Maggior  Consiglio  ; 
every  week  that  council  was  engaged  in  filling  up  some 
office  of  state,  had  some  new  candidate  before  it.  The 
tenure  of  all  offices,  except  the  dukedom  and  the  pro- 
curatorship  of  St.  Mark,  was  so  brief,  rarely  exceeding 
a  year  or  sixteen  months,  that  the  fret  and  activity 
of  elections  must  have  been  nearly  incessant.  This 
constant  unrest  bore  its  fruit  in  perpetual  intrigues, 
and  censors  were  appointed  to  check  the  rampant 
corruption  and  bribery.  But  the  main  point  which 
is  impressed  upon  us  is  the  universality  of  political 
training  to  which  all  the  nobles  of  Venice  were 
subjected.  No  matter  how  frivolous  a  young  patrician 
might  be,  he  was  obliged  to  sit  in  the  Great  Council ; 
he  would  be  called  upon  to  assist  in  electing  the  Ten, 
whose  omniscience  and  severity  he  had  every  reason 
to  dread ;  he  might  even  find  himself  named  to  fill 
some  minor  post.  It  was  impossible,  under  these 
circumstances,  that  he  should  fail  to  be  educated 
politically,  or  that  he  should  ever  lose  the  keenest 
interest  in  every  movement  of  the  state.  It  is  to  this 
political  activity  that  we  must  look  for  one  of  the 
reasons  which  conduced  to  the  extraordinary  longevity 
of  the  Venetian  constitution. 

Each  of  the  government  offices,  many  as  they  were, 
possessed  its  own  collection  of  papers.  These  are 
either  still  in  loose  sheets,  just  as  they  left  the  office, 
or  bound  in  volumes.  They  are  indicated  by  the 
name  of  the  government  department,  the  subject  dealt 
with,  and  the  date.  The  papers  are  of  three  kinds ; 
first,  there  are  the  files  or  filze}  the  original  minutes 
of  the  board,  written  down  in  actual  council  by  the 
secretaries,  and  with  the  filze  are  the  despatches  or 
other  documents  upon  which  the  council  took  measures. 
In  many  of  the  more  important  departments,  such 
as  the  Senate,  the  Ten,  or  the  College,  these  filze 


3i4       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

were  epitomized  ;  the  substance  of  each  day's  business 
was  written  out  in  large  volumes  known  as  "  Registri "  ; 
each  entry  was  signed  by  the  secretary  who  had  made 
the  digest,  and  was  accepted  as  authentic  for  all 
purposes  of  reference.  These  registers  are,  in  many 
cases,  of  the  greatest  value  where  the  files  have  been 
destroyed  or  lost.  They  were  more  constantly  in  use, 
and  therefore  more  carefully  preserved  ;  and  now  they 
frequently  form  our  sole  authority  for  certain  periods. 
As  a  rule  the  registers  are  very  full  and  good ;  they 
contain  all  that  is  of  importance  in  the  files;  but  in 
making  research  upon  any  point  it  is  never  safe  to 
ignore  the  files  where  they  exist.  In  some  cases  the 
secretaries  made  a  further  digest  of  the  registers  in 
volumes  known  as  "  Rubrics,"  which  contain  in  brief 
the  headings  of  all  materials  to  be  found  in  the 
registers.  As  the  registers  sometimes  supply  the  place 
of  lost  files,  so  the  rubrics  are  occasionally  our  only 
authority  where  registers  and  file  are  both  missing. 
The  rubrics  are  often  of  the  highest  value.  As  an 
instance,  we  may  cite  the  twenty  volumes  of  rubrics 
to  the  despatches  from  England  between  the  years 
1603  and  1748.  The  method  of  research,  therefore, 
where  all  three  kinds  of  documents  exist  is  this : 
to  examine  first  the  rubrics,  then  the  registers,  and 
then  the  files.  But  the  infinite  subdivisions  of  the 
government  offices  in  Venice  render  the  task  of  research 
somewhat  bewildering;  and  a  student  cannot  be  certain 
that  he  has  exhausted  all  the  information  on  his  subject 
until  he  has  examined  a  large  number  of  these  minor 
offices.  He  will  probably  find  some  notice  of  the 
point  he  is  examining  in  the  papers  of  the  Senate 
or  of  the  Ten,  and  if  it  be  a  matter  of  home  affairs, 
he  can  trace  it  thence  through  the  various  magistracies 
under  whose  cognizance  it  would  come ;  or  if  it  be 
a  matter  of  foreign  policy,  he  will  find  further  infor- 
mation in  the  papers  of  the  College. 

Under  the  Republic  these  collections  of  state  papers 
were  not  known  as  archives,  but  as  chancelleries.     The 


THE  DUCAL  CHANCELLERY  315 

collections  of  highest  interest,  the  papers  to  which  the 
student  is  most  likely  to  turn  his  attention,  are  those 
relating  to  the  ceremony,  to  the  home,  and  to  the 
foreign  policy  of  Venice.  These  three  groups  are 
contained  in  the  ducal,  the  secret,  and  the  inferior 
chancelleries.  The  three  chancelleries  were  committed 
to  the  charge  of  the  grand  chancellor  and  his  staff 
of  secretaries,  who  received,  arranged,  and  registered 
the  official  papers  as  they  issued  from  the  various 
councils  of  state.  The  grand  chancellor  was  not  a 
patrician ;  he  was  chosen  from  that  upper  class  of 
commoners  known  as  cittadini  originarii,  an  inferior 
order  of  nobility,  ranking  below  the  governing  caste, 
but  bearing  coat  armour.  The  office  of  grand  chan- 
cellor was  of  great  dignity  and  antiquity,  and  was  held 
for  life.  The  chancellor  was  head  and  representative 
of  the  people,  as  the  doge  was  head  and  represen- 
tative of  the  patricians ;  and  when  the  nobility  began 
to  exclude  the  people  from  all  share  in  the  government, 
the  grand  chancellor  was  allowed  to  be  present  at  all 
sessions  of  the  Great  Council  and  of  the  Senate  as  the 
silent  witness  of  the  people,  confirming  the  acts  of 
the  government,  and  bridging,  though  by  the  finest 
thread,  the  gulf  that  otherwise  separated  the  governed 
from  the  governing.  The  part  which  the  grand  chan- 
cellor took  in  the  business  of  the  Maggior  Consiglio 
and  of  the  Senate  was  a  constant  and  an  active  part. 
It  was  his  duty  to  superintend  the  arrangements  for 
every  election,  to  direct  the  secretaries  in  attendance, 
to  announce  the  names  of  the  candidates  for  office,  and 
to  proclaim  the  successful  competitor.  His  seat  in  the 
Great  Council  hall  was  on  the  left-hand  of  the  doge's 
dai's,  and  his  secretaries  sat  below  him. 

But  the  custody  of  the  state  papers  was  by  far  the 
most  important  function  which  the  grand  chancellor 
had  to  perform.  To  assist  him  in  these  labours  he  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  large  college  of  secretaries, 
trained  in  a  school  especially  established  to  fit  them 
for  their  duties.  In  the  year  1443  a  decree  of  the 


316       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

Great  Council  required  the  doge  and  the  Signoria 
to  elect  each  year  twelve  lads  to  be  taught  Latin, 
rhetoric,  and  philosophy,  and  the  number  of  the  pupils 
was  gradually  increased.  From  this  school  they 
passed  out  by  examination,  and  became  first  extra- 
ordinaries  and  ordinaries,  called  notaries  ducal,  then 
secretaries  to  the  Senate,  and  finally  secretaries  to 
the  Ten.  The  post  of  secretary  was  one  which 
required  much  diligence  and  discretion.  The  secretaries 
were  in  constant  attendance  on  the  various  councils 
of  state,  and  thus  became  intimately  acquainted  with 
all  the  secret  affairs  of  the  Republic.  They  were 
frequently  sent  on  delicate  missions.  It  was  a  secre- 
tary of  the  Ten  who  brought  Carmagnola  to  Venice 
to  stand  his  trial ;  and,  as  we  shall  presently  relate, 
it  was  a  secretary  of  the  Senate  who  announced  to 
Thomas  Killigrew,  the  English  minister,  his  dis- 
missal from  Venice.  The  secretaries  were  sometimes 
accredited  as  residents  to  foreign  courts,  though  they 
were  not  eligible  for  the  post  of  ambassador.  Inside 
the  chancellery  the  secretaries  were  entirely  at  the 
disposal  of  the  grand  chancellor,  and  their  duties  were 
to  study,  to  invent,  and  to  read  cipher ;  to  transcribe 
the  registers  and  rubrics ;  to  keep  the  annals  of  the 
Council  of  Ten ;  and  to  enter  the  laws  in  the  statute 
book. 

We  may  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  principal 
series  of  state  papers  which  issued  from  the  five  great 
members  of  the  constitution,  the  Maggior  Consiglio, 
the  Senate,  the  Ten,  the  College,  and  the  doge,  and 
show  how  these  papers  were  arranged  under  the  three 
chancelleries  of  which  we  have  spoken. 

The  cancelleria  inferiore  was  preserved  in  one  large 
room  near  the  head  of  the  Giants'  Staircase  in  the 
ducal  palace,  and  was  entrusted  to  the  care  of 
the  notaries  ducal,  the  lowest  order  of  secretaries.  The 
documents  in  this  chancellery  related  chiefly  to  the 
doge,  his  rights,  his  official  possessions,  his  restric- 
tions, and  his  state.  Among  these  papers,  accordingly, 


THE  DUCAL  CHANCELLERY  317 

we  find  the  coronation  oaths,  the  reports  of  the  com- 
missioners appointed  to  examine  those  oaths,  and  the 
reports  of  the  commissioners  appointed  to  review  the 
life  of  each  doge  deceased.  This  series  is  valuable  as 
revealing  the  steps  by  which  the  aristocracy  slowly 
curtailed  the  personal  authority  of  the  doge,  and  bound 
his  office  about  with  iron  fetters,  and  crushed  his 
power.  In  addition  to  these  papers  the  inferior 
chancellery  contained  the  documents  relating  to  the 
dignitaries  of  St.  Mark's  in  its  capacity  as  ducal 
chapel;  the  order  and  ceremony  of  the  ducal  house- 
hold ;  the  expenditure  of  the  civil  list ;  and  the  archives 
of  the  procurators  of  St.  Mark,  which  contained  the 
wills,  trusts,  and  bequests  of  private  citizens. 

The  ducal  chancellery,  which  the  Council  of  the 
Ten  once  called  "  cor  nostri  status,"  was  preserved  on 
the  upper  floor  of  the  palace,  and  was  reached  by  the 
Scala  d'oro.  The  papers  were  arranged  in  a  number 
of  cupboards  surmounted  by  the  arms  of  the  various 
grand  chancellors  who  had  presided  in  that  office. 
The  documents  of  the  ducal  chancellery  are  of  far 
higher  importance  than  those  contained  in  the 
cancelleria  inferiore ;  they  consist  of  political  papers 
which  it  was  not  necessary  to  keep  secret.  Among 
the  many  interesting  series  of  documents  which  fell 
to  the  ducal  chancellory,  the  most  valuable  are  the 
"  compilazione  della  Leggi,"  or  statute-books  dis- 
tinguished by  the  various  colours  of  their  bindings — 
gold,  roan,  and  green— to  mark  the  statutes  which 
relate  to  the  Maggior  Consiglio,  the  Senate,  and  the 
College  respectively ;  the  "  secretario  alle  voci,"  or 
record  of  all  elections  in  the  Great  Council ;  the  "  libri 
gratiarum,"  or  special  privileges.  But  most  important 
of  all  is  the  great  series  of  documents  which  include 
the  whole  legislation  of  the  Senate  relating  to  Venetian 
affairs  on  sea  and  land.  Of  this  vast  series,  those 
marked  "Terra"  contain  3128  volumes  of  files,  411 
volumes  of  registers,  and  7  volumes  of  rubrics ;  those 
marked  "Mar"  number  1286  volumes  of  files,  247 


volumes  of  registers,  and  7  volumes  of  rubrics.  It 
will  easily  be  seen  how  important  the  ducal  chancel- 
lery is,  both  for  the  verification  of  dates  and  also  as 
displaying  so  large  a  tract  of  the  Venetian  home 
administration. 

But  important  as  the  ducal  chancellery  undoubtedly 
is,  it  cannot  vie  in  interest  with  the  cancelleria  secreta, 
which  might,  with  every  justice,  have  been  called 
"  cor  nostri  status,"  for  it  is  in  the  papers  of  that 
chancellery  that  the  long  history  of  the  growth, 
splendour,  and  decline  of  the  Republic  is  to  be  traced 
in  all  its  manifold  details  and  complicated  relations. 
The  secret  chancellery  was  established  by  a  decree 
of  the  Great  Council  in  the  year  1402.  Its  object  was 
to  preserve  those  papers  of  highest  state  importance 
from  the  publicity  to  which  the  ducal  chancellery  was 
exposed.  The  regulation  of  the  secret  chancellery  was 
undertaken  by  the  Council  of  Ten,  and  the  rigorous 
orders  which  they  issued  from  time  to  time  abundantly 
prove  the  difficulty  they  experienced  in  securing 
the  secrecy  which  they  desired.  The  secret  chancellery 
became  the  depository  of  all  state  papers  of  great 
moment;  and  if  we  take  the  chief  members  of  the 
constitution  in  order,  and  note  the  documents  issuing 
from  them  which  fell  to  the  custody  of  the  secreta,  we 
shall  see  how  the  great  flow  of  Venetian  history  is  to 
be  followed  here  rather  than  in  any  other  department 
of  the  archives. 

To  begin  with  the  Maggior  Consiglio,  we  have  the 
long  series  of  registers  containing  the  deliberations 
of  the  council  from  the  year  1232  down  to  the  fall  of 
the  Republic  in  1797,  occupying  forty-two  volumes,  and 
distinguished,  at  first,  by  such  capricious  names  as 
"Capricornus,"  "Pilosus,"  "Presbiter,"  and  "Fronesis"; 
and  later  on  by  the  names  of  the  secretaries  who 
prepared  them,  "Ottobonus  primus,"  "  Ottobonus 
filius,"  "  Busenellus,"  and  "  Vianolus."  In  the  special 
archive  of  the  Avvogadori  di  Commun,  a  contemporary 
series  of  registers  is  to  be  found ;  it  covers  from  1232 


THE  CANCELLERIA  SECRETA          319 

to  1547,  and  should  be  consulted  together  with  the 
first  series,  for  it  is  more  voluminous  and  minute. 
The  first  reference  to  England  that  occurs  in  the 
Venetian  archives  is  in  the  volume  "  Fronesis"  (1318- 

1385). 

The  Senate  supplied  a  far  larger  number  of  papers 
to  the  secret  chancellery  than  that  yielded  by  the 
Great  Council.  This  was  to  be  expected,  owing  to 
the  central  position  of  the  Senate  in  the  constitution, 
and  its  prominent  place  in  the  management  of 
Venetian  policy,  home  and  foreign.  The  oldest 
documents  in  the  archives  of  Venice  belong  to  the 
Senate.  They  are  contained  in  the  volumes  of  pacts 
or  treaties,  seven  in  number,  without  including  the 
volume  "  Albus,"  which  is  devoted  to  treaties  between 
the  Republic  and  the  Eastern  Empire,  or  the  volume 
"  Blancus,"  which  contains  the  treaties  between  Venice 
and  the  Emperors  of  the  West.  The  thirty-three 
volumes  of  "  Commemoriali "  formed  a  sort  of  com- 
monplace book  for  the  use  of  statesmen ;  in  them 
were  registered  briefly  the  most  important  events 
and  abstracts  of  principal  documents  which  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  government.  The  "  Com- 
memoriali" cover  the  years  1293  to  1797;  but  after  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  they  were  neglected, 
and  they  are  chiefly  valuable  down  to  that  date  only. 
After  the  "  Patti  "  and  "  Commemoriali "  we  begin  the 
record  of  the  regular  proceedings  in  the  Senate.  This 
series  contains  papers  relating  to  home  government, 
foreign  policy,  the  dominions  of  Venice  on  the  main- 
land, in  Dalmatia  and  the  Levant,  ecclesiastical  matters, 
relations  with  Rome,  instructions  to  ambassadors,  and 
reports  from  governors.  So  widely  spread  and  so 
varied  were  the  attributes  of  the  Senate,  that  the 
analysis  of  a  single  day's  proceedings  in  that  house 
would  prove  most  instructive  to  the  student  of  the 
Venetian  constitution,  and  would,  in  all  probability, 
bring  him  into  contact  with  a  large  number  of  the 
leading  magistracies  of  the  Republic.  The  series  of 


320       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

senatorial  papers  proceeds  in  almost  unbroken  com- 
pleteness from  the  year  1293  down  to  the  close  of 
the  Republic ;  and,  counting  files,  registers,  and  rubrics, 
numbers  1599  volumes.  This  main  series  is  known 
by  different  names  at  different  periods,  and  shows 
signs  of  that  tendency  to  subdivision  which  charac- 
terizes all  Venetian  government  offices.  The  volumes 
which  run  from  the  year  1293  to  1440  were  known  as 
"  Registri  misti " ;  those  covering  from  1491  to  1630 
were  called  "  Registri  secreti."  After  the  year  1630 
the  papers  of  the  Senate  are  divided  into  those  known 
as  "  Corti,"  relating  to  foreign  powers ;  and  those 
known  as  "  Rettori,"  relating  to  the  government  of  the 
Venetian  dominion. 

Besides  this  great  series  of  "  Deliberazioni,"  con- 
taining the  general  movement  of  business  in  the 
Senate,  there  is  another  voluminous  series  of  docu- 
ments, equally  important,  and  even  more  interesting 
to  the  student  of  general  history — the  despatches  re- 
ceived from  Venetian  representatives  at  foreign  courts, 
and  the  "  Relazioni,"  or  reports  which  ambassadors 
read  before  the  Senate  upon  their  return  from  abroad. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  brilliancy  of  this  series ;  and 
the  value  of  the  "  Relazioni "  at  least  has  been  fully 
recognized.  Yet  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
"  Relazioni "  are  only  a  part  of  the  series,  and  that, 
taken  alone  and  isolated  from  the  despatches,  they 
lose  much  of  their  value.  For  we  must  not  forget 
that  the  "  Relazioni "  were  drawn  up  on  more  or  less 
conventional  lines ;  the  headings,  under  which  the 
report  was  to  fall,  were  indicated  by  the  government, 
and  were  invariable;  and,  further,  the  home-coming 
ambassador  handed  his  report  to  his  successor,  who 
frequently  used  it  as  a  basis  in  drawing  up  his  own. 
The  result  is  that,  except  in  the  descriptions  of  court 
life  and  in  the  sketches  of  prominent  characters,  the 
"  Relazioni  "  are  apt  to  repeat  themselves.  But,  taken 
with  the  despatches,  which  arrived  almost  daily,  they 
form  the  most  varied,  brilliant,  and  minute  gallery  of 


THE  "RELAZIONI"  321 

national  portraits  that  the  world  possesses.  The 
reports  and  despatches  were  made  by  men  whose 
whole  political  training  had  rendered  them  the  acutest 
of  observers,  and  they  were  presented  to  critics  who 
were  filled  with  the  keenest  curiosity,  and  were  accus- 
tomed to  demand  full  and  precise  information.  Not 
a  detail  is  omitted  as  unimportant ;  the  diurnal  gossip 
of  the  court,  the  daily  movements  of  the  sovereign 
and  his  favourites,  are  all  recorded  with  impartial  and 
unerring  observation.  The  relation  of  the  "  Dispacci " 
to  the  "  Relazioni "  is  the  relation  of  the  study  to  the 
picture.  The  "  Relazioni "  are  the  large  canvas  upon 
which  the  whole  nation  is  broadly  depicted,  the 
"  Dispacci "  are  the  patient  and  minute  studies  upon 
which  the  excellence  of  the  picture  depends.  The 
majority  of  the  Venetian  "  Relazioni "  between  the 
years  1492  and  1699  have  been  published ;  the  earlier 
part  by  Signer  Alberi,  and  the  later  by  Signori  Barozzi 
and  Berchet.  The  eighteenth  century  still  remains  to 
be  worked  out.  In  the  series  of  "  Relazioni "  and 
"  Dispacci,"  Great  Britain  occupies  a  comparatively 
small  space.  While  France,  Germany,  and  Constanti- 
nople each  give  five  volumes  of  reports,  England 
gives  one  only,  dating  from  1531  to  1773.  Of  de- 
spatches from  England  there  were  139  volumes  in  all; 
while  from  Constantinople  we  have  242,  from  France 
276,  from  Milan  230,  and  from  Germany  202. 

Previous  to  the  year  1603,  when  the  regular  series 
of  despatches  from  England  begins,  there  had  been 
intermittent  relations  between  the  Republic  and  the 
English  court.  Sebastian  Giustiniani  was  Venetian 
ambassador  in  London  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
(1515-1519);  and  in  the  reign  of  Mary,  Giovanni 
Michiel  represented  the  Republic  for  four  years — from 
1554  to  1558.  The  Protestant  reign  of  Elizabeth  caused 
a  long  break,  during  which  the  Republic  received 
its  information  about  the  affairs  of  England  from  its 
ambassadors  in  France  and  Spain.  Permanent  rela- 
tions were  not  resumed  between  the  two  powers  till 

VOL.  I.  21 


322       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

the  accession  of  James  I.,  one  of  whose  earliest  acts 
was  to  send  Sir  Henry  Wotton  to  Venice  as  his 
ambassador.  The  appointment  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton 
was  a  movement  of  gratitude  on  the  part  of  the  king ; 
and  the  cause  of  it  cannot  be  better  told  than  in  the 
words  of  Sir  Henry's  biographer,  who  thus  describes 
this  "  notable  accident "  : 

"  Immediately  after  Sir  Henry  Wotton's  return  from 
Rome  to  Florence — which  was  about  a  year  before 
the  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth — Ferdinand  the  Great, 
Duke  of  Tuscany,  had  intercepted  certain  letters,  that 
discovered  a  design  to  take  away  the  life  of  James, 
the  then  King  of  Scots.  The  duke  abhorring  this 
fact,  and  resolving  to  endeavour  a  prevention  of  it, 
advised  with  his  secretary  Vietta,  by  what  means  a 
caution  might  be  best  given  to  that  king;  and  after 
consideration  it  was  resolved  to  be  done  by  Sir  Henry 
Wotton,  whom  Vietta  first  commended  to  the  duke, 
and  the  duke  had  noted  and  approved  of  above  all 
the  English  that  frequented  his  court. 

41  Sir  Henry  was  gladly  called  by  his  friend  Vietta 
to  the  duke,  who  despatched  him  into  Scotland  with 
letters  to  the  king,  and  with  those  letters  such  Italian 
antidotes  against  poison  as  the  Scots  till  then  had 
been  strangers  to. 

"  Having  parted  from  the  duke,  he  took  up  the 
name  and  language  of  an  Italian;  and  thinking  it 
best  to  avoid  the  line  of  English  intelligence  and 
danger,  he  posted  into  Norway,  and  through  that 
country  towards  Scotland,  where  he  found  the  king 
at  Stirling.  Being  there,  he  used  means,  by  Bernard 
Lindsey,  one  of  the  king's  bed-chamber,  to  procure 
him  a  speedy  and  private  conference  with  his 
Majesty. 

"  This  being  by  Bernard  Lindsey  made  known  to 
the  king,  the  king  required  his  name — which  was 
said  to  be  Octavio  Baldi — and  appointed  him  to  be 
heard  privately  at  a  fixed  hour  that  evening. 

14  When  Octavio  Baldi  came  to  the  presence-chamber 


SIR  HENRY  WOTTON  323 

door,  he  was  requested  to  lay  aside  his  long  rapier, — 
which,  Italian-like,  he  then  wore  ; — and  being  entered 
the  chamber,  he  found  there  with  the  king  three  or 
four  Scotch  lords  standing  distant  in  several  corners 
of  the  chamber ;  at  the  sight  of  whom  he  made  a 
stand ;  which  the  king  observing,  bade  him  be  bold 
and  deliver  his  message ;  for  he  would  undertake  for 
the  secrecy  of  all  that  were  present.  Then  did  Octavio 
Baldi  deliver  his  letters  and  message  to  the  king  in 
Italian ;  which  when  the  King  had  graciously  received, 
after  a  little  pause,  Octavio  Baldi  steps  to  the  table, 
and  whispers  to  the  king  in  his  own  language,  that 
he  was  an  Englishman,  beseeching  him  for  a  more 
private  conference  with  his  Majesty,  and  that  he  might 
be  concealed  during  his  stay  in  that  nation ;  which 
was  promised  and  really  performed  by  the  king,  during 
all  his  abode  there,  which  was  about  three  months. 
All  which  time  was  spent  with  much  pleasantness  to 
the  king,  and  with  as  much  to  Octavio  Baldi  himself 
as  that  country  could  afford  ;  from  which  he  departed 
as  true  an  Italian  as  he  came  thither." 

The  presence  of  Sir  Henry  in  Venice,  where  he  was 
a  persona  gratissima,  both  on  account  of  his  love  for 
Italy  and  his  knowledge  of  the  language,  did  much  to 
strengthen  the  new  relations  between  England  and  the 
Republic.  The  feeling  between  Venice  and  the  Stuart 
kings  became  extremely  cordial ;  but  on  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  in  1642,  the  Republic  suspended  the 
commission  of  Vincenzo  Contarini,  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  succeed  Giovanni  Giustinian  as  ambassador 
to  England.  The  secretary  Girolamo  Agostino,  how- 
ever, continued  to  discharge  Venetian  affairs  till  the 
year  1645  ;  and  his  despatches  contain  minute  particu- 
lars concerning  the  progress  of  the  Civil  War.  In  the 
year  1645,  Agostino  was  recalled,  and  the  interests  of 
Venice  in  England  were  entrusted  to  Salvetti,  the 
Florentine  resident.  Agostino  left  behind  him  in 
England  a  secret  agent,  with  instructions  to  forward  a 
weekly  report  on  the  progress  of  affairs  to  the  Venetian 


324       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

ambassador  in  France,  among  whose  despatches  we 
find  these  news-letters  from  London.  After  the  death  of 
Charles  I.  it  is  not  likely  that  the  Republic  would  have 
been  represented  at  the  court  of  Cromwell,  towards 
whom  the  feeling  of  Venice  was  not  cordial,  had  she 
not  been   in  great  straits  for  help  against  the  Turk. 
But  in  the  year  1652  she  resolved  to  dismiss  the  repre- 
sentative of  Charles  II. f  then  in  Venice;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  government  instructed  the  ambassador 
at  Paris  to  send  his  secretary,  Lorenzo  Pauluzzi,  to 
London  to  open  negotiations  with  Cromwell.     With 
Pauluzzi  the  series  of  despatches  from  London  recom- 
mences ;  but  these  despatches  are  to  be  found  among 
the  communications  from  the  Venetian  ambassador  in 
Paris,  by  whom  they  were  forwarded  to  the  Senate. 
The  despatches  of  Pauluzzi  are  of  great  importance, 
and  give  us  a  vivid  though  hostile  picture  of  Cromwell 
and  his  surroundings.      In  1655  the  negotiations  be- 
tween England  and  Venice  had  advanced  so  far  that 
the  Republic  had  determined  to  send  an  ambassador 
extraordinary  to    the    Protector's    court.      Giovanni 
Sagredo,  ambassador  at  Paris,  was  chosen.     The  result 
of  Sagredo's  mission  is  contained  in  the  long  and 
brilliant  relazione  which  he  read  in  the  Senate  on  his 
return  to  Venice  in  1656.     In  this  splendid  specimen 
of  a  Venetian  report,  to  which  we  shall  return  in  a 
subsequent  essay,  Sagredo  gives,  with  singular  lucidity 
and  grasp,  a  brief  sketch  of  the  condition  of  Great 
Britain  ;  of  the  causes  of  the  Civil  War ;  of  Cromwell's 
rise  to  power ;  of  his  foreign  relations  ;  and  closes  with 
a  portrait  of  the  Protector  which  confirms  Pauluzzi's 
unfavourable  view,  and  draws  a  terrible  picture  of  that 
restlessness  and  dread  which  clouded  Cromwell's  last 
days — "  piu  temuto  che  amato  .  .  .  vive  con  sempiterno 
sospetto."      When   Sagredo  returned   to  Venice,  his 
secretary,   Francesco  Giavarnia,  was  left  behind    in 
England,  as  Venetian  resident,  and  continued  to  hold 
that  post  till  the  Restoration,  sending  despatches  every 
week  direct  to  Venice,  detailing  the  close  of  the  Pro- 


THE  PAPERS  OF  THE  TEN  325 

tectorate,  and  the  return  of  Charles  II.,  whom  he  was 
the  first  to  welcome  at  Canterbury  the  day  after  his 
landing.  In  1661  the  Republic  gladly  reopened  full 
relations  with  the  Stuarts.  Giavarnia  was  superseded 
by  two  ambassadors  extraordinary,  who  conveyed  to 
Charles  two  gondolas  for  the  water  in  St.  James's 
Park,  and  from  that  date  onwards  the  diplomatic  con- 
nection between  England  and  the  Republic  followed  the 
ordinary  course. 

We  come  now  to  the  papers  of  the  Council  of  Ten  ; 
all  of  these  were  committed  to  the  custody  of  the  secret 
chancellery.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  Council 
of  Ten  was  an  extraordinary  office,  used  upon  extra- 
ordinary occasions,  where  secrecy  and  speed  were 
required.  Its  chief  occupations  may  be  summed  up 
under  three  heads — safety  of  the  state,  protection  of 
citizens,  and  public  morals.  That  being  the  case,  the 
number  and  interest  of  its  documents  are  very  great- 
greater  than  those  of  any  other  council  of  state  ;  but  this 
interest  is  confined,  for  the  most  part,  to  matters  affect- 
ing the  home  policy  of  the  Republic ;  foreign  affairs 
find  comparatively  little  illustration  among  the  papers 
of  the  Ten.  The  series  of  documents,  containing  the 
ordinary  business  of  the  Ten,  dates  from  the  year  1315 
to  the  close  of  the  Republic.  The  documents  are 
arranged  according  to  the  matter  they  deal  with ;  that 
is  to  say,  political  matter  (parti  communi  and  secreti), 
ecclesiastical  matter  (j>arti  Roma),  or  criminal  matter 
(processi  criminali).  The  immense  importance  and 
interest  attaching  to  the  papers  of  the  Ten  will  be  illus- 
trated by  the  statement  that  there  we  find  such  papers 
as  still  survive  in  connection  with  the  cases  of  the 
Carraresi,  of  Carmagnola,  of  Foscari,  of  Caterina 
Cornaro,  and  of  Foscarini. 

Among  the  papers  of  the  Collegio  we  find  ourselves 
once  more  in  the  general  current  of  foreign  politics. 
The  ordinary  proceedings  of  the  College,  the  papers 
containing  the  arrangement  and  discussion  of  affairs  to 
be  presented  to  the  Senate,  are  included  in  the  volumes 


326 

of  files  and  registers,  known  as  the  "  Notatorii  del 
Collegio."  We  also  have  the  two  important  series  of 
"  Lettere  "  and  "  Lettere  secrete."  The  College  was  en- 
trusted,aswe  have  said, to  receive  all  the  representatives 
of  foreign  powers  and  to  open  all  letters  and  despatches 
addressed  to  the  government.  It  is  in  the  three  series 
known  as  "  Lettere  Principi,"  "  Esposizioni  Principi," 
and  "  Ceremoniali,"  that  we  obtain  the  fullest  informa- 
tion about  the  action  of  the  agents  from  foreign  courts 
resident  in  Venice.  The  series  called  "  Lettere  Prin 
cipi,"  letters  from  royal  personages,  covers  the  years 
between  1500  and  1797,  and  is  contained  in  fifty-four 
volumes  of  filze.  England  is  represented  by  two  of 
these,  beginning  with  the  year  1570,  and  ending  with 
1796,  entitled  "Collegio,  Secreta,  Lettere.  Re  e 
Regina  'd'Inghilterra."  These  volumes  contain  one 
hundred  and  seventy-one  letters,  thus  distributed 
among  the  various  sovereigns :  there  are  thirteen  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth ;  forty  in  that  of  James  I. ;  four 
in  that  of  Charles  I. ;  three  from  Oliver  Cromwell ;  one 
from  Richard  Cromwell ;  one  from  Speaker  Lenthal ; 
ten  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  ;  five  during  that  of 
his  brother  ;  three  during  the  reign  of  William,  includ- 
ing one  from  the  Chevalier;  seven  in  the  reign  of 
Anne ;  eight  in  that  of  George  I. ;  twenty-one  from 
George  II. ;  and  fifty-five  from  George  III.  These 
letters  are  concerned  with  formal  announcements  and 
the  exchange  of  courtesies,  the  credentials  of  ambas- 
sadors, and  notices  of  royal  births,  marriages,  and 
deaths.  Their  historical  importance  is  very  slight. 
The  long  series  of  George  III.  is  almost  entirely 
occupied  by  noting  the  yearly  increase  of  his  family. 
The  autographs  of  the  ministers  who  countersigned 
the  letters  form  their  greatest  attraction.  The  late 
Mr.  Rawdon  Brown  has  published  facsimiles  of  these 
autographs  down  to  the  year  1659;  but  after  that 
date  we  find  such  interesting  endorsements  as  those 
of  Lauderdale,  Arlington,  Bolingbroke,  Carteret,  Pitt, 
Halifax,  Henry  Conway,  Shelburne,  and  Charles  James 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  327 

Fox.  On  a  loose  parchment  among  these  letters  is 
one  very  curious  document.  It  is  dated  Bologna, 
February  21,  1671,  and  begins  "  Carlo  Dudley  per  la 
gratia  di  Dio  duca  di  Northumbria  et  del  Sacro 
Romano  Impero,  conte  di  Woruih  e  di  Licester,  et 
Pari  d'Ingliterra."  The  document  goes  on  to  state 
that  Charles  Dudley,  Duke  of  Northumberland,  in 
consideration  of  the  affection  and  partiality  always 
shown  towards  his  person  and  house,  grants  to 
Ottavio  Dionisio,  noble  of  Verona,  the  title  of  marquis 
to  him  and  to  his  eldest  son,  to  his  younger  sons  and 
to  his  brothers  and  their  sons,  the  title  of  count,  in 
perpetuity ;  and  this  in  virtue  of  the  declaration  and 
authority  of  his  Holiness  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  which 
conferred  on  Charles  Dudley  and  his  eldest  born  the 
right  to  exercise  all  the  privileges  of  an  independent 
prince.  At  the  date  which  this  document  bears, 
1671,  there  was  no  Duke  of  Northumberland;  that 
title  had  lately  been  bestowed  by  Charles  II.  on  an 
illegitimate  son,  and  had  perished  with  him.  This 
Charles  Dudley  was  perhaps  a  son  of  Sir  Robert 
Dudley,  who  settled  in  Florence  and  made  the  port 
of  Leghorn.  The  document  is  curious,  for  the  noble 
family  on  whom  Charles  Dudley  conferred  this  title  of 
marquis  still  exists,  and  we  do  not  know  that  any 
British  subject,  either  before  or  after,  has  ever  claimed 
to  be  a  fountain  of  honour.  But  Charles  Dudley  is 
not  the  only  English  pretender  who  figures  among 
the  papers  at  the  Frari.  Filza  8  of  the  loose  papers, 
titled  "  Miscellanea  Diversi  Manoscritti,"  contains  the 
marriage  certificate  and  will  of  James  Henry  de  Boveri 
Rossano  Stuart,  natural  son  of  Charles  II.,  and  seven 
letters  from  his  son  James  Stuart,  dated  Milan, 
Gemona,  and  Padua,  1722  to  1728.  The  majority  of 
these  letters  are  addressed  to  Cardinal  Panighetti, 
from  whom  this  "  povero  principe  Stuardo,"  as  he  calls 
himself,  hoped  to  receive  money  and  support  in  some 
imaginary  claims  on  the  Crown  of  England.  The 
letters  are  full  of  a  certain  pathos — the  pathos  which 


328       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

cannot  fail  to  attach  itself  to  fallen  royalty.  The 
handwriting  is  that  of  an  uneducated  man  ;  and  James 
Stuart,  in  these  letters,  certainly  shows  no  signs  of 
the  ability  required  to  meet  so  trying  a  situation.  He 
appeals  to  the  cardinal  first  on  the  grounds  of  his 
creed.  It  is  "  for  the  faith  that  he  finds  himself  in  the 
miserable  little  town  "  of  Gemona.  Failing  upon  this 
line,  James  Stuart  abandons  himself  to  astrology,  in 
the  hope  that  the  stars  may  give  an  answer  favourable 
to  his  hopes.  But  to  all  his  appeals  the  cardinal 
replies  with  cold  reserve,  and  when  he  hears  of 
astrology,  he  adds  a  sharp  and  crushing  reprimand. 
Leaving  the  "  Lettere  Principi,"  we  come  to  the  last 
two  series  of  state  papers  of  which  we  shall  speak,  the 
"  Esposizioni  Principi,"  or  record  of  all  audiences 
granted  to  ambassadors,  and  of  the  communications 
made  by  them  in  the  name  of  the  power  they  repre- 
sented ;  and  the  "  Libri  Ceremoniali,"  or  record  of  the 
great  functions  of  state,  the  coronations  and  funerals 
of  the  doges,  the  elections  of  the  grand  chancellors, 
the  reception  accorded  to  ambassadors,  princes,  and 
distinguished  travellers.  The  Republic  of  Venice  was 
as  punctilious  as  any  court  of  Europe  upon  the  points 
of  precedence,  ceremony,  and  etiquette.  The  reader 
will  not  have  forgotten  the  amusing  account,  given  by 
the  elder  Disraeli,  of  the  long  struggle  between  the 
master  of  the  ceremonies  and  the  Venetian  ambassador 
at  the  court  of  St.  James.  The  government  required 
from  its  representatives  a  minute  report  on  every 
detail  of  etiquette  observed  towards  them,  and  replied 
in  kind  in  their  treatment  of  foreign  ministers  in 
Venice.  The  Republic  was  punctilious  abroad,  and  no 
less  so  at  home.  Every  stage  in  the  public  entry,  first 
audience,  and  conge  of  foreign  ambassadors  was  care- 
fully regulated  and  based  upon  precedent.  The 
ambassadors  of  Spain  and  France  had  each  a  special 
volume  devoted  to  the  ceremonies  and  etiquette  which 
the  Republic  observed  towards  them.  M.  Baschet 
describes  at  length  the  receptions  of  the  French 


THE  RECEPTION   OF  AMBASSADORS    329 

ambassadors,  for  whom  he  claims  the  highest  rank 
among  the  representatives  of  foreign  powers  at  Venice. 
Great  Britain  sent  fifty-eight  embassies,  in  all,  to  the 
Republic,  between  the  years  1340  and  1797.  Of  these 
ambassadors,  Sir  Gregory  Cassalis  filled  the  office 
twice,  Sir  Henry  Wotton  thrice,  the  Earl  of  Man- 
chester twice,  and  Elizeus  Burgess  twice.  The 
ceremony  to  which  the  ambassador  was  entitled  may 
be  gathered  from  the  accounts  of  these  embassies 
preserved  in  the  "  Esposizioni  Principi "  and  the 
"  Ceremoniali." 

The  reception  of  Lord  Northampton  in  the  year 
1762  will  afford  us  the  most  detailed  view  of  the 
ceremony,  for  on  that  occasion  some  questions  of 
precedence  arose,  and  the  Cavaliere  Ruzzini,  who  was 
entrusted  with  the  conduct  of  the  affair,  presented  a 
long  report  to  the  Senate  on  the  subject.  The  ambas- 
sador was  not  officially  recognized  by  the  government 
until  he  had  made  his  public  entry,  and  presented  his 
credentials  at  his  first  audience  in  the  College.  Until 
that  had  taken  place,  he  remained  incognito,  and  was, 
in  fact,  supposed  not  to  be  in  Venice.  Before  the 
ambassador  arrived,  the  English  consul  was  expected 
to  hire  a  palace  for  his  use.  There  was  no  fixed 
embassy  in  Venice ;  Thomas  Killigrew  lodged  at  San 
Cassano,  Lord  Holdernesse  at  San  Benedetto,  Lord 
Manchester  at  San  Stae.  John  Udny,  who  was 
consul  at  the  time  of  Lord  Northampton's  embassy, 
rented  the  Palazzo  Grimani  at  San  Girolamo  in 
the  Canaregio  for  the  ambassador  whenever  his  ap- 
pointment was  announced,  and  an  amusing  and 
characteristic  story  attaches  to  this  affair.  The 
palace  belonged  to  a  Contessa  Grimani,  and  was  in 
bad  repair;  but  the  owner  promised  to  restore  and 
fit  it  up  for  the  ambassador.  When  the  consul  went 
to  see  the  palace,  shortly  before  the  ambassador's 
arrival,  he  found  that  nothing  had  been  done  to  it, 
and  moreover  that  a  gondolier  and  his  wife  occupied 
the  ground-floor  and  refused  to  move.  He  wrote  at 


330       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

once  to  the  contessa  requesting  her  to  dislodge  the 
gondolier,  to  which  he  received  for  answer  that  the 
gondolier's  wife  had  been  nurse  to  one  of  the  countess's 
boys,  and  the  Grimanis  had  promised  her  twenty 
ducats  a  year ;  if  the  ambassador  liked  to  pay  that 
amount,  the  gondolier  would  turn  out;  if  not,  they  must 
manage  to  share  the  palace  between  them.  The  consul 
appealed  to  the  English  resident,  John  Murray,  who 
wrote  an  angry  letter  to  the  government,  complaining 
of  this  treatment.  "  La  carita  della  nobile  donna,"  he 
says,  "  verso  la  moglie  del  gondoliere  merita  senza 
dubbio  gran  lode,  ma  il  sottoscritto  s'  imagina  che 
F  avvocato  piu  scaltro  si  troverebbe  bene  intrigato  di 
produrre  una  legge  o  esempio  per  incaricare  1'Am- 
basciatore  Inglese  di  questa  carita." 

The  matter  was  probably  arranged,  for  on 
October  22  Lord  Northampton  arrived,  incognito 
of  course,  with  all  his  suite,  and  took  up  his  residence. 
Lord  Northampton  was  ill,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
beginning  of  the  next  year  that  he  took  the  necessary 
step  to  make  his  entry  and  to  secure  his  first  audience. 
The  etiquette  observed  upon  such  occasions  required 
that  the  ambassador  should  send  his  secretary  to  leave 
copies  of  his  credentials  at  the  door  of  the  College, 
and  to  ask  on  what  day  the  doge  would  receive  him. 
The  College  reply  through  one  of  their  secretaries 
that  an  answer  will  be  sent.  The  doge  was  then 
consulted  what  day  would  suit  him,  and  he  answers 
by  putting  himself  at  the  disposal  of  the  College. 
The  Senate  is  then  informed  of  the  ambassador's 
arrival,  and  sixty  senators,  under  the  direction  of  a 
leader,  are  appointed  to  attend  the  ambassador  until 
the  ceremonies  of  his  reception  shall  be  completed. 
The  days  selected  for  Lord  Northampton's  reception 
were  May  29  and  30,  1763 ;  and  the  Cavaliere 
Ruzzini  was  named  as  head  of  the  sixty  senators 
who  were  to  attend  the  ambassador.  Ruzzini  in- 
formed Lord  Northampton  of  these  arrangements, 
and  at  the  same  time  sent  him  a  programme  of  the 


LORD  NORTHAMPTON  331 

ceremony,  which  was  based  upon  that  observed 
towards  Lord  Holdernesse,  and  was  identical  with 
that  which  the  Republic  offered  to  the  ambassador  of 
the  King  of  Sardinia.  Before  his  public  entry,  the 
ambassador  and  his  suite  went  to  the  island  of 
San  Spirito,  in  the  lagoon  towards  Malamocco.  The 
fiction  of  the  ceremony  supposed  all  ambassadors  to 
be  lodged  there  until  they  had  presented  their 
credentials.  San  Spirito  was  chosen  as  the  point 
of  departure  for  the  ambassadorial  procession 
because  the  distance  between  that  island  and  Venice 
was  supposed  to  correspond  exactly  with  the  distance 
between  London  and  Greenwich,  whence  the  Venetian 
ambassador  was  wont  to  begin  his  progress.  Sir 
Henry  Wotton's  second  embassy  forms  a  rare  ex- 
ception to  this  rule,  for  the  Venetians  were  so  fond 
of  that  charming  and  accomplished  poet,  that  they 
allowed  him  to  make  his  entry  from  San  Giorgio 
Maggiore,  which  is  much  nearer  the  city  and  more 
convenient.  After  midday  on  the  29th,  Ruzzini  and 
his  sixty  senators,  each  in  his  gondola,  arrived  at 
San  Spirito,  and  found  the  household  of  the  ambas- 
sador drawn  up  along  the  landing-place  en  grande 
tenue.  Lord  Northampton  was  informed  of  Ruzzini's 
arrival,  and  came  to  meet  him  on  the  staircase. 
After  exchanging  the  prescribed  compliments,  Ruzzini, 
with  the  ambassador  on  his  right  hand,  descended, 
and  both  entered  the  cavaliere's  gondola.  The 
whole  procession  left  San  Spirito,  and  proceeded  by 
the  Grand  Canal  to  the  ambassador's  lodging  at  San 
Girolamo,  accompanied,  as  Ruzzini  says,  by  "  un 
immenso  popolo  spettatore  del  nostro  viaggio  " ;  for 
these  official  entries  were  among  the  most  popular 
of  the  Venetian  spectacles,  and  the  whole  city  went 
out  to  witness  them.  At  the  palace  fresh  speeches 
and  compliments  followed.  Lord  Northampton  was 
suffering  acutely  from  an  illness  of  which  he  died  that 
same  year,  but  Ruzzini  reports  with  obvious  satis- 
faction that  he  did  not  spare  him  a  single  ceremony, 


332       THE  VENETIAN   CONSTITUTION 

"  adempi  ad  ogni  parte  del  consueto  ceremoniale." 
The  next  day  Ruzzini  and  the  sixty  senators  again 
attended  at  the  ambassador's  palace  to  conduct  him 
to  his  audience  in  the  College.  Lord  Northampton 
was  worse  than  he  had  been  the  day  before ;  but 
Ruzzini  was  implacable.  It  cost  the  ambassador 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  to  ascend  the  Giant's  Stair. 
When  at  last  he  reached  the  door  of  the  Collegio,  the 
doge  and  all  the  College  rose;  the  ambassador  un- 
covered and  made  three  bows,  and,  leaving  his 
suite  behind  him,  he  mounted  the  dai's  and  took  his 
seat  on  the  right  hand  of  the  doge.  The  ambassador 
then  covered  his  head,  and  simultaneously  one  of 
each  order  of  the  savii  did  the  same.  The  ambas- 
sador handed  his  credentials  to  the  doge,  and 
remained  uncovered  while  they  were  being  read. 
The  doge  made  a  brief  and  formal  reply  welcoming 
the  ambassador  to  Venice,  and  each  time  the  king's 
name  occurred,  the  ambassador  raised  his  cap.  After 
repeating  his  three  bows,  the  ambassador  retired,  and 
was  accompanied  to  his  palace  by  the  sixty  senators 
who  had  waited  for  him  at  the  doors  of  the  Collegio. 
This  closed  the  ceremony  of  entry. 

The  English  ambassador  extraordinary  enjoyed 
certain  privileges,  which  were  established  on  the 
precedent  of  the  embassy  of  Lord  Falconberg,  Crom- 
well's son-in-law.  Among  these  privileges  was  the 
right  to  lodging  and  maintenance  at  the  cost  of  the 
Republic,  a  right  which  the  ambassador  usually  com- 
pounded for  the  sum  of  five  or  six  hundred  ducats ; 
a  box  at  each  theatre  in  Venice  was  placed  at  his 
disposal ;  and  when  he  took  his  conge  the  Senate 
voted  him  a  gold  chain  and  medal  of  the  value  of 
two  thousand  scudi.  The  ambassadors  ordinary 
enjoyed  certain  exemptions  from  customs  dues. 
These  exemptions  were  frequently  abused,  and  were 
the  cause  of  constant  friction  between  the  government 
and  the  representatives  of  foreign  powers.  In  the 
year  1763  Mr.  John  Murray's  Istrian  wine  was  seized, 


TOM   KILLIGREW  333 

and  he  only  recovered  it  after  expressing  himself  ben 
mortifaato.     Mr.  Murray  was   constantly  in  trouble 
on   this  subject.    The  year  before  he  had  addressed 
an   indignant  letter  to  the    government  because  "  a 
certain    official    of   the    custom-house    had    accused 
him  of  allowing  his  servants  to  sell  wine  and  flour 
at    the    door    of   the    residency.      It  is   but  a  poor 
satisfaction  after  so  long  a  period  of   suspicion   to 
know  that  that  official  is  bankrupt  and  no  proof  of 
the  accusation  is  forthcoming."     But  by  far  the  most 
curious  episode  of  this  nature  was  that  which  befell 
Tom  Killigrew,  the  poet,  grandfather  of  the  Mrs.  Anne 
Killigrew  of  Dryden's  famous  ode  and  a  friend  of 
Pepys,  who  recalls   him   as   "  a   merry   droll,   but  a 
gentleman  of  great  esteem  with  the  king,  who  told  us 
many  merry  stories,"  this,  perhaps,  among  the  number. 
Killigrew  was  sent  to  represent  Charles  II.  at  Venice 
in    1649,  just  after  the  execution   of  Charles  I.,  and 
while  his  son  was  a  ramingo,  or  knocking  about,  as 
the  Venetian  ambassador  politely  puts  it.     Killigrew 
was  received  in  the  usual  way  on  February  10,  1650, 
and  made  his  address  in  lingua  cattiva,  as  the  report 
affirms.     But  the  Republic  tired  of  its  alliance  with  an 
exiled  king,  and  resolved  to  dismiss  Killigrew  as  soon 
as  possible.     Killigrew  was  poor,  and  his  master  had 
little   or  nothing  to  give   him,   so  he   hit  upon  the 
expedient  of  keeping  a  butcher's  shop,  where  he  could 
sell   meat  cheaper  than  any  one  else  in  Venice,  by 
availing  himself  of  his  exemptions  from  octroi.    The 
Senate  resolved  to  fasten  upon  this  illicit  traffic  as  a 
pretext  for  dismissing    Killigrew ;    and  on   June    22, 
1652,   they    sent    their    secretary,   Busenello,   to   tell 
Killigrew,  viva  voce,  that    he    must    go.      Busenello 
went  to  San  Fantin,  and   there  found  one  of  Killi- 
grew's  butchers,  who  told  him  that  the  resident  only 
kept  his  shop  there,  but  lived  himself  at  San  Cassano. 
At  San  Cassano   Busenello  was  told   that  Killigrew 
was  dining  at  Murano,  and  would  not  be  home  till 
evening ;  but  very  soon  after  he  saw  the  resident  at 


334       THE  VENETIAN  CONSTITUTION 

his  window,  and  insisted  on  being  announced.  He 
explained  "  with  all  possible  delicacy,"  as  he  says, 
the  order  of  the  Senate ;  but  Killigrew  received  the 
message  with  every  sign  of  anger  and  pain.  With 
tears  in  his  eyes  he  declared  that  it  was  the  other 
ambassadors  who  robbed  the  customs,  while  he  had 
all  the  blame.  It  was  true  that  he  did  keep  "a  little 
bit  of  a  butcher's  shop  to  support  himself,"  but  that 
could  not  hurt  the  revenue ;  and  he  added  that,  under 
any  circumstance,  he  should  leave  Venice,  for  he  had 
received  his  letters  of  recall  from  France  four  days 
previously.  The  Senate  no  more  than  their  secretary 
believed  in  the  existence  of  this  letter  of  recall ;  but 
Killigrew  really  had  the  letter,  dated  March  14, 
and  it  was  sent  into  the  College,  along  with  a  brief 
exculpatory  epistle  from  the  resident,  on  June  27. 
Killigrew  left  Venice  the  same  day,  as  he  was  bound 
to  do  by  ambassadorial  etiquette;  and  Charles  had 
not  another  recognized  agent  to  the  Republic  until 
his  restoration;  for  the  Venetians  definitely  adopted 
the  policy  of  courting  Cromwell,  in  the  vain  hope  that 
he  would  assist  them  against  the  Turk. 

With  the  papers  of  the  College  we  close  this  notice 
of  the  political  documents  in  the  archives  at  the  Frari. 
The  other  departments  of  the  government  had  each 
their  own  series  of  papers,  equally  copious  and  valu- 
able. The  heraldic  and  genealogical  archives  of  the 
Avvogadori  di  Commun,  for  example,  the  charters  of 
the  German  and  Turkish  exchanges,  and  the  records 
of  the  mint  and  the  public  banks,  offer  a  wide  and  a 
rich  field  for  study ;  and  in  spite  of  the  profound  and 
extensive  labours  of  scholars,  it  will  be  long  before 
the  materials  in  the  vast  storehouse  of  the  Frari  are 
exhausted  or  even  adequately  displayed. 


The  Commercial  and  Fiscal  Policy  of  the 
Venetian  Republic 

IT  is  not  our  intention  in  this  essay  to  follow  the 
history  of  Venetian  commerce,  nor  to  illustrate  its  rise 
and  decline  during  the  four  hundred  years  that  Venice 
led  the  trade  of  the  world  and  was  the  greatest  sea- 
power  in  Europe,  but  rather,  if  possible,  to  extract 
from  the  course  of  that  history,  and  from  the  legis- 
lation adopted  by  the  Republic,  the  leading  ideas,  the 
fundamental  conceptions,  which  governed  her  com- 
mercial and  fiscal  policy.  The  external  history  and 
the  internal  legislation  are,  of  course,  intimately  con- 
nected, but  it  is  with  the  latter  that  we  are  now  chiefly 
concerned. 

The  task  presents  some  difficulty,  for,  though  the 
history  of  Venice  has  been  handled  from  the  commer- 
cial point  of  view  by  such  writers  as  Marin J  and 
Sandi,2  these  authorities  are  occupied  with  the  strictly 
political,  rather  than  with  the  economic,  aspect  of  the 
subject ;  no  attempt,  except  in  the  case  of  the  inedited 
treatise  by  Pier  Giovanni  Capello,3  has  been  made  to 
observe  and  set  forth  the  economic  principles  which 
underlay  Venetian  fiscal  legislation. 

No  doubt  the  study  of  economics  as  a  science  had 

*  *  Marin,  Storia  civile  e  politico,  del  Commercio  de'Veneziani  (in 
Vinegia:  1791). 

1  Sandi,  Principii  del  la  Storia  civile  del  la  Republica  di  Venezia 
(Venezia:  1755). 

3  Pier  Giovanni  Capello,  Principii,  owero  massime  regolatrici  di 
Commercio  raccolte  dalle  Leggi  e  Documenti  delta  Republica  di 
Venezia.  MS.  inedited.  (Library  R.  Scuola  Superiore  di  Commercio, 
Venice). 

335 


336     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

hardly  come  into  being  when  the  Venetian  Republic 
fell.  Colbert's  action  in  France  had  been  noted,  but 
chiefly  for  its  results,  not  for  its  ideas — the  state  of 
Venice  was  Colbertian  in  practice  long  before  Colbert 
— while  the  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith  had  not  found 
time  to  spread  from  Kirkcaldy  to  the  Lagoons.  No 
body  of  economic  laws  had  as  yet  been  induced  from 
experience,  and  legislation  was  empirical.  As  regards 
the  Republic  in  particular — just  as  a  healthy  body 
is  unconscious  of  organs,  so  the  state,  while  thriving 
commercially,  was  unconscious  of  the  principles  that 
governed  her  economic  well-being.  It  was  not  till  her 
commerce  began  to  decline  that  Venice  became  aware 
of  the  uneasiness  produced  by  thwarted  functions  ;  and 
although,  as  we  shall  see,  there  were  not  wanting  bold 
spirits  to  speak  their  mind  in  the  Senate,  or  to  commit 
their  thoughts  to  paper,  indicating  the  mischief  and 
suggesting  a  remedy,  still  the  jealous  conservatism  of 
the  Venetian  Republic,  its  repugnance  to  lay  bare 
defects,  forbade  publication.  We  must  turn  to  the 
storehouse  of  the  Frari,  to  the  mass  of  inedited  papers 
it  contains,  if  we  desire  light  on  the  matter  in  hand.1 

The  Republic  of  Venice  has  justly  been  compared 
to  a  joint-stock  company  for  the  exploitation  of  the 
East.  The  board  of  directors  was  the  Senate,  the  citi- 
zens of  Venice  the  shareholders.  The  vast  majority  of 
the  senators  were  men  of  business,  engaged  actively  in 
traffic,  and  from  them  emanated  the  regulations  which 
governed  Venetian  commerce — the  choice  of  trade 
routes,  the  appointment  of  consuls,  the  directions  for 
the  mercantile  marine,  the  imposition  of  customs,  the 
formation  of  tariffs.  In  short,  the  fundamental  idea  of 
"  the  Mercantile  System  "  prevailed  in  early  Venice  as 
it  prevailed  much  later  in  Elizabethan  England.  The 
State  undertook  "  to  foster  economic  life."  But  the 
Senate  was  a  large  body,  numbering  one  hundred  and 

1  Reggio  Archivio  di  Stato,  Venice.  Papers  of  the  Proweditori  di 
Comun  ;  Papers  of  the  Cinque  Savii  alia  Mercanzia ;  Deliberations 
of  the  Senate  ;  Minutes  of  Audiences. 


THE  AUTHORITIES  337 

eighty  members,  and  was,  moreover,  occupied  with 
branches  of  legislation  other  than  commercial.  Many 
of  its  functions  and  much  of  its  power  were  gradually 
delegated  to  special  boards — the  "  Provveditori  di 
Comun,"  which,  for  the  purposes  of  this  essay,  we  may 
call  the  board  of  manufactures,  under  whose  super- 
vision came  the  arts  and  crafts  of  the  city,  though 
it  also  discharged  other  functions ;  and  the  "  Cinque 
Savii  alia  Mercantia,"  or  board  of  trade,  which  dealt 
with  Venetian  commerce,  maritime  and  inland.  Both 
boards  were  advisory  and  executive,  and  it  is  in  the 
records  of  these  two  offices  that  we  are  best  able  to 
follow  the  movement  of  Venetian  industry,  trade,  and 
commerce ;  while  in  the  "  Risposte  "  and  "  Scritture,"  or 
opinions  submitted  to  the  Senate,  we  find  the  basis 
and  the  motives  for  the  legislation  enacted  by  that 
body. 

We  have  one  other  manuscript  authority  of  con- 
siderable value.  About  1730  Pier  Giovanni  Capello, 
patrician,  senator,  and  one-time  member  of  the  board 
of  trade,  compiled  an  economic  treatise  in  two  parts  : 
one  deals  with  commercial  principles  as  gathered  from 
universal  practice,  the  other  sets  forth  the  principles 
which  governed  the  conduct  of  the  Venetian  Republic 
in  particular.  Coming  late  in  the  history  of  the  state, 
Capello,  in  his  treatise,  lays  down  the  doctrines  upon 
which  he  bases  the  remedies  he  would  apply  to  the 
ills  from  which  commercial  Venice  was  suffering.  He 
is,  for  example,  firmly  convinced  that  the  consumer 
pays  the  whole  of  the  difference  between  initial  cost- 
price  and  final  selling-price,  or  profit,  as  we  say ;  the 
consumer  being,  in  the  case  of  Venice,  the  great 
foreign  markets.  "  Whence,"  he  asks,  "  come  these 
profits  ?  Most  assuredly,  and  beyond  all  doubt,  they 
come  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  last  purchasers."  The 
trader's  gross  profit,  he  says,  is  the  difference  between 
the  price  he  pays  to  the  producer  and  the  price  at 
which  he  sells  to  the  dealer.  Capello  dwells  on  this 
point  because  he  has  in  his  mind  the  main  branch 

VOL.    I.  22 


338     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

of  Venetian  commerce — the  carrying  trade,  whose 
fundamental  principle  it  was  that  the  owner  of  the 
goods  and  the  carrier  of  the  goods  should,  as  far  as 
possible,  be  one  and  the  same  person,  the  Venetian 
merchant.  Capello  is  a  convinced  protectionist,  but 
also  a  "  free-fooder."  "  It  would  produce,"  he  remarks, 
"  an  excellent  effect  if  the  taxes  on  bread  and  wine 
were  repealed,  and  would  bring  about  a  notable  gain 
to  industry  and  trade."  This  is  a  principle  which 
seems  to  have  dominated  Venetian  fiscal  policy  from 
early  days.  In  1462,  when  the  state  was  raising  money 
for  war  purposes,  we  find  the  following  entry  in 
Malipiero's  Annali :  "  Che  tutte  le  mercanzie  che  intra 
per  via  de  mar,  eccettuade  le  vittuarie,  paghi  uno  per 
cento  a  la  guerra." 1  In  the  course-  of  this  essay  we 
shall  frequently  refer  to  Capello's  doctrines  as  applied 
to  the  commerce  of  his  native  state.  His  treatise  may 
be  met  with  in  various  codices.  The  one  we  have 
used  belongs  to  the  Reggia  Scuola  superiore  di  Com- 
mercio  in  Venice.  Our  thanks  are  due  for  permission 
to  consult  it. 

The  commercial  policy  of  a  state  is  governed  by 
three  main  factors — geographical  position,  natural 
products,  and  the  course  of  events.  A  glance  at  the 
map  of  Europe  will  show  us  at  once  the  paramount 
importance  of  the  geographical  position  enjoyed  by 
Venice  as  long  as  the  Mediterranean  continued  to  be 
the  chief  trade-route  of  the  world.  Lying  at  the  head 
of  a  long  water  avenue — trending  east  and  west — 
Venice  was  the  port  farthest  into  the  heart  of  Europe, 
and  lay  on  the  directest  line  between  extreme  east  and 
extreme  west.  She  was  indicated  by  nature  as  the 
point  of  distribution :  at  Venice  merchants  came 
nearest  to  their  markets  without  breaking  bulk.  She 
was  also  the  natural  focus  of  transit ;  the  arteries  of 
commerce  between  England,  Flanders,  France,  Ger- 
many, on  the  one  hand,  and  Turkey,  Egypt,  Syria, 

1  Malipiero,  Annali  Venett,  in  the  Archivio  Storico  Italiano, 
torn.  vii.  (Florence  :  1843),  part  i.  p.  13. 


NATURAL  PRODUCTS  339 

Persia,  and  India  on  the  other,  passed  through  her 
port.  Take  any  other  point,  Brindisi,  for  example : 
the  merchant  who  landed  his  goods  there  would  have 
had  to  convey  them  through  the  kingdom  of  Naples, 
the  states  of  the  Church,  Ferrara,  Venice  herself,  and 
she  held  the  passes ;  or,  take  Salonica  :  that  route  was 
extremely  dangerous  then,  and  is  not  safe  now ;  any 
port  farther  west  was  too  far  west  for  Central  Europe, 
and,  moreover,  the  waters  that  led  to  it  were  swarming 
with  pirates.  As  regards  natural  products,  Venice  was 
poorly  off.  But  she  possessed  one  of  prime  import- 
ance— namely,  salt,  which  in  the  course  of  her  early 
history  gave  her  a  decided  hold  over  her  neighbours 
on  the  mainland,  and,  in  a  certain  way  and  on  the 
smaller  scale  of  those  earlier  days,  may  almost  be  com- 
pared with  England's  virtual  monopoly  of  coal.  Salt 
was  a  necessity  of  life  to  her  neighbours.  Cassiodorus 
observed,  when  discussing  the  Lagoons,  that  men  may 
live  without  gold  or  silver,  but  not  without  salt. 
Venice  was  alive  to  her  advantage,  and  went  to  war  to 
preserve  her  monopoly.  The  mainlanders  were  forced 
to  come  into  Venice  for  their  salt ;  they  brought  their 
native  produce  with  them,  and  took  away  some  of  the 
goods  that  Venice  was  accumulating  by  sea,  thus 
materially  adding  to  the  wealth  of  the  city.  As  to  the 
course  of  events,  it  was  events  such  as  the  Fourth 
Crusade  that  built  up  Venetian  commerce  in  the 
Mediterranean ;  it  was  events  such  as  the  advent  of 
the  Turk  and  the  discovery  of  the  Cape  route  that 
pulled  that  structure  down. 

Geographical  position  and  natural  products,  then, 
indicated  Venice  as  an  emporium  city,  a  mart  for  the 
distribution  of  goods  east  and  west ;  the  course  of 
events  ensured  her  that  place.  The  conquest  of  the 
Dalmatian  pirates  gave  her  the  command  of  the 
Adriatic,  which  she  policed ;  the  upshot  of  the  Fourth 
Crusade  left  her  supreme  in  the  Levant.  The  dangers 
which  threatened  her  position  as  an  emporium — perils 
of  the  sea  from  storms  and  pirates— she  met  by  skilled 


340    COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

seamanship  and  a  powerful  fleet  patrol.  All  down  her 
history  the  fundamental  commercial  idea  of  the  state 
was  the  establishment  of  herself  as  the  great  receiver 
and  distributor.  That  she  was  a  producer  as  well — 
a  manufacturer  to  some  extent — is  true;  but  she 
looked  upon  her  produce  chiefly  as  a  subsidiary  means 
for  adding  to  the  volume  of  goods  she  could  supply 
to  foreigners.  Her  foreign  trade  absorbed  most  of 
her  attention.  She  never  lost  sight  of  her  position  as 
the  mart  of  Europe,  the  place  of  contract,  il  luogo  di 
contratto. 

The  feeder  of  this  emporium,  this  reservoir  of  capital 
in  goods,  was  twofold,  home  and  foreign.  The  home 
feeder  gave  natural  produce,  chiefly  salt  and  salted 
fish,  as  well  as  some  manufactures,  with  which  we 
shall  have  to  deal  when  we  come  to  the  question  of 
protection.  The  foreign  feeder,  by  far  the  more 
copious,  gave  "  omnes  de  partibus  ultramarinis  divi- 
tias,"  the  richness  and  variety  of  which  belong  to 
common  knowledge.  The  valves  which  regulated  the 
inflow  and  outflow  of  this  reservoir  were  a  double 
taxation  on  imports  and  exports.  By  means  of  this 
instrument  the  supply  of  goods  could  be  regulated 
and  over-stocking  or  depletion  rectified  by  raising  the 
import  and  lowering  the  export  dues  in  the  one  case; 
by  reversing  the  process  in  the  other. 

That  the  Venetians  were  fully  alive  to  the  value  of 
their  position  as  an  emporium  is  clear.  Their  salt 
monopoly  gave  them  their  first  advantage  over  their 
neighbours  on  the  mainland,  but  their  imports  by  sea 
soon  placed  in  their  hands  the  command  of  many 
luxuries  in  addition  to  their  hold  over  one  prime 
necessity.  Nor  were  they  slow  to  use  their  advantage. 
The  threat  of  a  boycott  was  sufficient  to  induce  the 
neighbouring  princes  to  grant  them  preferential 
tariffs,  only-favoured-nation  treaties,  and,  in  some 
cases,  even  monopolies  of  market.  Two  instances 
out  of  many  will  serve.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
John,  Bishop  of  Belluno,  refused  a  Venetian  demand, 


COMMAND  OF   MARKETS  341 

but  "  Dux    salubri    usus    consilio    statuit   ut  Veneti 
praedictam  Marchiam  ausi  non  forent  adire  vel  cum 
eis  commercia  agere.      Unde    incolae    regionis  illius 
carentes  sale  et  aliis  rebus  maritimis,  pacem  a  Venetiis 
petierunt";  and   in    1332   Luigi  Gonzaga,   unable   to 
resist  the  Venetian    threat    to    withdraw    commerce 
unless  indemnified  for    injury  to    Venetian    traders, 
made  his  submission  and  paid  the  claim.     The  Vene- 
tians were  masters  of  the  situation,   and   their  pre- 
ferential   treatment    in    the     mainland     markets    of 
Northern  Italy  enabled   them    to   pursue  the    policy 
Capello  ascribes   to   them  of  outbidding  at  purchase 
and  underselling  at  sale,  a  policy  which  proves  that 
they  were  conscious  of  their  power  as  an  emporium, 
and  were  determined  to  retain  it  by  securing  a  mono- 
poly.    At  purchase  they  outbid  competitors  and  left 
them  with  no  stock  wherewith  to  trade.     At  sale  they 
undersold  competitors  and  so  kept  the  market.     But 
both  operations   depended  for  their  ultimate   success 
upon  the  existence  of  a  great  reservoir  of  goods  in 
reserve.     When  the  purchase  market  was  cleared  of 
rivals,  Venetian  prices  could  drop.     When  the  sale 
market  was  cleared  of  rivals,   Venetian  prices  could 
rise.    Recoupment  for  outbidding  and  underselling  was 
secured.     State  regulations  obeying,   perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, the  idea  of  the  community  as  a  joint-stock 
company,  prevented    internal  competition.      No  indi- 
vidual Venetian  was  permitted  to  spoil  the   market. 
It  was  Venice  united  against  the  world. 

But  this  commanding  position  depended  on  certain 
conditions,  some  of  which  were  beyond  the  control 
of  the  Venetians,  others  amenable  to  their  action. 
The  essential  factor  in  success  was  that  the  trade 
route  of  the  world  should  continue  to  pass  their  way, 
and  that  they  should  retain  the  command  of  that 
route ;  for  Venice  was  not  primarily  a  manufacturing 
state,  and  even  in  so  far  as  she  was  a  producer  her 
activity  depended  largely  on  the  introduction  of  sea- 
borne material.  The  route  and  the  command  of  it 


342     COMMERCIAL  AND   FISCAL  POLICY 

were  the  vital  points,  and  the  latter  depended  for  its 
security  on  the  ships  and  the  men.  We  shall  pre- 
sently find  that  Venetian  legislation,  in  defence  of  her 
commercial  position,  is  directed  chiefly  to  these  points, 
the  preservation  of  her  position  as  an  emporium  and 
the  command  of  the  trade  route  by  the  formation  and 
upkeep  of  an  excellent  mercantile  marine.  Venetian 
commercial  history  is  the  history  of  what  took  place 
along  those  lines.  The  Senate  of  the  Republic  seems 
to  have  grasped  to  the  full  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's 
dictum  that  "  Whosoever  commands  the  sea,  com- 
mands the  trade.  Whosoever  commands  the  trade  of 
the  world,  commands  the  riches  of  the  world,  and 
consequently  the  world  itself."  It  was  this  con- 
sideration which  lent  such  importance  to  the  question 
of  the  Adriatic,  the  question  of  the  Gulf,  as  the 
Venetians  called  it  in  their  desire  to  stamp  it  as  their 
own  mare  clansum ;  and  Sarpi,  long  before  Captain 
Mahan,  had  seen  and  stated  the  essential  point  in  the 
doctrine  of  sea-power,  no  less  from  the  mercantile 
than  from  the  naval  point  of  view,  when  he  declared 
that  "  chi  puo  venire  per  mare  non  e  mai  lontano." 

The  commercial  action  of  Venice  was  directed  to 
making  herself  the  mart  of  the  world  ;  but  we  are  able 
to  observe  the  operation  of  an  idea  which  confined 
that  mart  to  the  city  of  Venice  alone,  excluding  the 
state  of  Venice  and  her  subject  lands.  The  theory 
of  the  Dominante,  or  ruling  city,  was  this :  that  all 
goods  of  whatsoever  kind  or  description,  whether 
from  subject  lands  to  subject  lands,  or  from  foreign 
lands  to  foreign  lands,  must  be  brought  into  the 
city  of  Venice.  The  idea  of  the  Dominante  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  Proclamation  of  1728  :  "  Sempre  costante 
la  publica  massima  di  voler  vincolato  tutto  lo  Stato 
alia  provista  della  Dominante  per  proprio  uso  delle 
merci  maritime."  If  Zante  wished  to  sell  currants  to 
England,  those  currants  must  be  taken  to  Venice  first, 
and  there,  and  there  only,  could  English  merchants 
buy  them.  If  Brescia  and  Bergamo  wished  to  send 


THE  DOM  IN  ANTE  343 

their  clothes  east,  they  must  go  into  Venice  first.  All 
goods  sent  to  the  mainland  must  bear  the  mark  of 
transit  through  Venice  and  be  accompanied  by  a  certi- 
ficate of  origin  from  Venice.  This,  doubtless,  bore 
hard  on  Venetian  subjects  not  living  in  the  city  itself, 
and,  indeed,  we  find  Bergamo  protesting  that  it  is 
"  impossibile  tollerare  la  spesa  delli  datii  di  questa 
citta."  But  there  appears  to  have  been  a  double 
motive  for  this  harsh  treatment.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Dominante  was  responsible  for  the  protection  of  her 
subjects,  and  her  coffers  must  be  kept  full ;  in  the 
second  place,  she  was  thus  enabled  to  tax  her  subjects 
very  lightly.  The  success  with  which  the  Republic 
met  the  League  of  Cambray  justifies  her  seemingly 
selfish  policy.  She  was  able  to  spend  on  those  wars 
five  million  golden  crowns,  equal  to  ten  million 
Spanish  doubloons,  and  that  when  her  whole  main- 
land revenue  was  cut  off  and  her  mainland  possessions 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy ;  and  as  a  reward  for 
her  mild  taxation  her  mainland  possessions  returned 
to  her  of  their  own  accord  when  the  pressure  of  the 
hostile  league  was  removed. 

The  root  idea,  then,  of  Venetian  commercial  policy 
was  the  accumulation  of  goods  in  the  city  for  distribu- 
tion. Where  the  goods  are,  there  will  the  merchants 
be  gathered  together.  As  long  as  we  have  the  goods, 
argued  the  Venetians,  the  merchants  of  the  world 
must  come  to  us ;  they  will  not  come  empty-handed. 
What  they  bring  will  replace  what  they  take  away, 
and  we  shall  reap  a  profit  on  both  transactions ;  the 
money  we  accumulate  shall  be  devoted  to  the  defence 
of  our  sea  route  and  the  improvement  of  our  mer- 
cantile marine. 

By  the  accident  of  her  geographical  position,  by  the 
courage  of  her  arms,  and  the  industry  of  her  mer- 
chants, Venice  succeeded  in  building  up  a  commercial 
position  unique  in  the  mediaeval  world.  She  naturally 
resolved  to  keep  the  fruits  for  her  own  sole  con- 
sumption, and  to  do  this  she  adopted  a  very  high  form 


344     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

of  protection.  We  must  now  look  a  little  more  closely 
at  what  she  had  to  protect  and  the  way  in  which  she 
did  it. 

First,  as  to  her  natural  produce,  salt.  We  have 
seen  that  the  Republic  was  ready  to  make  any  infringe- 
ment of  her  monopoly  by  neighbouring  princes  a 
casus  belli ;  and  salt  remained  a  government  monopoly 
down  to  the  fall  of  the  Republic,  and  is  so  still  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Italy.  The  area  of  diffusion,  the  whole 
state  of  Venice,  and  the  amount  of  revenue  remained 
fairly  stable. 

As  to  Venetian  industries,  there  is  a  tendency  among 
historians  to  minimise  their  importance,  but,  though 
traffic  in  foreign  goods  was  undoubtedly  the  most 
important  branch  of  her  commercial  activity,  industries 
furnished  no  small  part  of  the  national  wealth,  and 
were  carefully  protected  by  the  government.  The 
main  branches  were  glass,  cloth,  silk,  leather,  paper, 
soap,  and  their  derivatives.  Trade  secrets  were 
guarded  by  severe  punishments.  The  exportation  of 
raw  material  was  forbidden — sand  and  alkali,  for 
instance,  in  the  interests  of  the  glass  trade,  rags  in  the 
interest  of  the  paper-makers.  The  government  carried 
protection  in  some  instances  beyond  high  protective 
tariffs  to  the  absolute  prohibition  of  foreign  goods,  as 
in  the  case  of  cloth  and  silk,  and  that  not  merely 
against  foreign  goods  properly  so  called,  but  against 
goods  manufactured  in  other  cities  of  the  dominion. 
Take  the  case  of  Cremona  in  1560.  The  board  of 
trade  was  ordered  to  report  on  a  petition  from  Cremona 
to  be  allowed  to  open  a  silk  factory.  It  advised 
refusal  on  two  grounds  :  (i)  that  "  portaria  pregiuditio 
all'  arte  di  questa  citta  et  deviaria  quella  con  la  quale 
si  nutrisce  una  infinita  de  diversi  operaii " ;  (2)  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  resist  other  petitions  if  this 
were  granted.  Industries,  however,  which  had  been 
established  before  the  Venetian  occupation  of  mainland 
cities,  such  as  the  cloth  factories  of  Bergamo,  Brescia, 
and  Padua,  were  not  interfered  with  beyond  the 


PROTECTION  345 

compulsion  to  send  the  goods  into  Venice  for 
distribution. 

But  not  only  were  Venetian  manufactures  protected 
against  foreign  competition  and  in  some  cases  against 
competition  by  co-nationals,  they  were  further  hedged 
in  by  the  guild  system  inside  Venice  itself.  Every 
trade  and  many  subdivisions  of  trade — even  down  to 
sausage-making — were  erected  into  guilds  which  were 
under  the  immediate  control  of  the  board  of  manu- 
factures. The  wide  development  of  the  guild  system 
in  Venice  had  a  double  significance  in  the  economy  of 
the  state,  one  political,  the  other  financial.  In  a  close 
oligarchy  such  as  the  state  of  Venice — where  all 
political  power  was  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a 
caste — the  life  of  the  guilds  afforded  a  safety-valve  for 
the  energies  of  the  excluded  ;  while  it  was  through  the 
organization  of  the  guilds  that  the  state  governed  its 
industries  and  levied  its  taxation  upon  trade. 

But  more  than  this,  so  determined  was  Venice  to 
wring  the  fullest  advantage  out  of  her  unique  position, 
that  freedom  of  contract  was  denied  to  foreign 
merchants.  The  foreigner  was  forbidden  to  buy 
direct  from  the  Venetian  producer  or  importer;  he 
was  obliged  to  employ  a  Venetian  broker,  through 
whom  the  government  levied  its  tax  on  purchase  and 
sale,  the  tax  known  as  the  messetaria.1 

On  the  other  hand,  the  government  was  well  aware 
of  the  importance  of  maintaining  the  high  quality  of 
Venetian  goods  which  it  was  endeavouring  to  force 
upon  the  markets  of  the  world,  "  che  riescano  le  mani- 
fatture  di  Venezia  della  piu  esquisita  perfezione  ;  anzi 
per  esse  leggi  e  prescritto  il  metodo  a  ciaschedun'  arte 
di  ben  lavorare  accioche  le  manifatture  loro  siano  grate 
a'  compratori."  Rules  for  the  proper  manufacture  of 
goods  were  formulated  and  government  officers  saw 
that  they  were  carried  out,  and  in  case  of  failure  the 
defective  goods  were  destroyed.  Two  instances  may 
serve  by  way  of  illustration.  Early  in  the  seventeenth 
1  See  Orlandini,  op.  cit. 


346     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

century  the  lieutenant  grand  vizir  at  Constantinople 
complained  to  the  Venetian  ambassador  that  the 
quality  of  Venetian  woollens  and  silks  had  fallen  off, 
"  the  only  good  thing  about  them,"  he  declared,  "  is 
their  name  " ;  if  this  went  on  the  vizir  threatened  to 
prevent  Venetians  from  discharging  such  goods  in 
Constantinople.  The  ambassador  replied  that  the 
state  regulations  were  excellent ;  every  diligence  was 
used  to  ensure  superior  quality  ;  inferior  qualities  were 
burned  in  public.  The  bad  quality  found  in  Constanti- 
nople was  introduced  under  the  name  of  Venetian  by 
Jews  through  the  port  of  Ragusa.1  The  other  instance 
occurred  a  little  later :  the  soapmakers  of  Venice  had 
left  the  city  in  large  numbers  and  opened  works  out- 
side the  state,  where  they  made  inferior  soap,  and 
placed  it  on  the  market  with  the  Venetian  marks  of 
the!  half-moon,  the  three  chains,  the  dove,  etc.,  under- 
selling the  genuine  goods,  and,  what  was  worse, 
ruining  the  repute  of  the  Venetian  article.  They  were 
all  ordered  to  return  to  Venice  within  three  months.2 
This  supervisory  legislation,  directed  to  maintaining 
the  high  quality  of  Venetian  goods,  was  initiated  in 
1244.  The  date  is  important.  Venice  was  then  just 
beginning  to  feel  the  expansion  of  her  commercial 
position  as  the  result  of  the  Fourth  Crusade,  and  her 
action  shows  that  she  already  conceived  of  the  state 
as  a  solid  whole,  a  firm  in  which  her  individual  citizens 
were  partners.  It  is  the  good  name  of  the  firm  that 
her  legislation  was  designed  to  preserve. 

Coming  now  to  her  mercantile  marine,  in  the  pro- 
tection of  which  the  Venetians  showed  the  greatest 
solicitude,  two  external  events  had  secured  for  the 
Republic  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world.  By  the 
suppression  of  the  Narentine  pirates,  she  had  obtained 
command  of  the  Gulf — a  command  confirmed  to  her 
after  the  defeat  of  the  Genoese  in  the  war  of  Chioggia. 

1  Archi-vio   di  Statit   Senate,   Secreta,  Dispacci,    Costantinopoli, 
May  4,  1612. 
*  Capello,  op.  tit. 


NAVIGATION   ACT  347 

She  claimed  the  Gulf  de  jure  belli,  and  on  the  ground 
that  she  policed  it.  By  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  the  term  "  the  Gulf  of  Venice  "  was  applied 
to  the  upper  part  of  the  Adriatic.1  She  laid  down 
rules — such  as  the  prohibition  to  foreign  ships  to  cross 
the  Gulf  from  one  shore  to  another,  the  obligation  on 
foreign  shipping  to  discharge  at  least  two-thirds  of 
their  cargoes  in  Venice  on  pain  of  being  refused 
permission  to  take  a  return  cargo,  the  right  of  search — 
all  of  which  clearly  embodied  her  claim.  But  her 
pretensions  were  not  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged, 
and  a  whole  literature  of  international  law  sprang  up 
round  the  subject.  In  the  second  place,  by  her  action 
during  the  Fourth  Crusade,  Venice  acquired  the 
dominant  position  in  the  Levant.  The  Gulf  and  the 
Levant  formed  her  trade  route  and  governed  her 
policy  as  regards  her  mercantile  marine.  The  double 
achievement  roused  Venice  to  a  consciousness  of  her 
prospects  in  the  carrying  trade,  and  that  consciousness 
expressed  itself  in  the  Statuti  Nautici  (i 229-5 5)>2  a 
code  drawn  up  to  govern  the  merchant  service.  The 
ruling  idea  was  very  much  the  same  as  that  which 
inspired  our  own  Navigation  Act  of  1651,  the  attempt 
to-  secure  for  Venetian  bottoms  the  carrying  trade  of 
the  world.  Elaborate  provisions  were  made  to  exclude 
the  foreigner.  No  Venetian  merchant  might  trade  in 
foreign  bottoms ;  no  insurance  could  be  effected  on 
goods  in  foreign  bottoms ;  no  Venetian  might  sell  his 
ships  to  a  foreigner.  The  object  was  to  secure,  if 
possible,  that  the  trader  and  the  carrier  should  be  one 
and  the  same  person,  the  Venetian  merchant,  or,  if 
separate  persons,  that  both  should  at  least  be  Venetians. 
Equal  attention  was  paid  to  the  quality  of  the  ships 

1  See  Lenel,  Die  Entstehung  der  VorJierrschaft  Venedigs  an  der 
Adria  (Strassburg  :  1897),  pp.  83,  84. 

*  The  Statuti  Nautici  of  Doge  Tiepolo  (1229)  was  first  printed  in 
1477  by  Filippo  di  Piero.  The  Statuta  et  ordinamenta  super 
na-vibus  et  allii  lignis  of  the  Doge  Rinier  Zeno  (1255)  has  been 
edited  by  Sacerdoti  and  Predelli  in  the  Nuovo  Archivio  Veneto, 
torn.  iv.  See  Molmenti,  op.  tit.  vol.  i.  p.  119. 


348     COMMERCIAL  AND   FISCAL  POLICY 

and  the  crews.  No  ships  might  be  built  outside  Venice  ; 
this  to  ensure  uniformity  of  build  and  identical  be- 
haviour under  stress  of  weather,  so  as  to  enable  a 
Venetian  merchant  fleet  to  keep  company  more  easily. 
A  load  line  was  established ;  large  deck  cargoes,  as 
hindering  the  efficient  handling  of  ships  in  storm  or 
in  action,  besides  endangering  their  stability,  were, 
strictly  prohibited.  The  training  of  young  officers 
and  the  quality  of  the  crews  received  close  attention. 
Every  merchantman  sailing  from  Venice  was  bound  to 
take  one  or  two  young  nobles  as  'prentice  hands ; 
these  apprentices  were  allowed  to  carry  a  certain 
amount  of  cargo  free  of  duty.  These  regulations  gave 
a  permanent  training-school  of  two  hundred  cadets  and 
upwards.  The  crews  were  to  consist  of  either  Venetian 
subjects  or  Greeks.  To  induce  seamen  to  come  to 
Venice,  every  mariner  from  outside  the  Adriatic  was 
allowed  to  carry  ten  ducats'  worth  of  goods  free  of  duty. 
This  cargo  was  stored  on  deck,  but  in  case  of  jettison 
the  value  was  made  good  by  the  owners.  Mariners' 
pay  could  not  be  sequestrated  for  any  debt  whatsoever, 
public  or  private.  Mariners  detained  in  quarantine 
were  to  be  regarded,  as  far  as  rations  were  concerned, 
as  though  they  were  at  sea.  Seamen's  homes,  founded 
by  the  piety  of  private  individuals  in  many  parts  of 
Venice,  were  under  state  trusteeship,  and  might  not 
be  let  or  sold  for  any  other  purpose. 

The  regulations  on  this  subject  were  calculated  to 
maintain  at  a  high  level  of  efficiency  the  mercantile 
marine  upon  which  Venice  so  largely  depended  for  the 
influx  of  wealth.  - 

The  right  to  participate  in  this  wealth — shareholder- 
ship,  in  fact,  in  this  joint-stock  concern,  the  commerce 
of  Venice — was  strictly  defined  and  limited.  In  theory 
none  but  Venetian  patricians  and  Venetian  citizens 
(cittadini  originarii)  had  a  right  to  trade  to  the  Levant. 
Those  markets  were  regarded  as  the  exclusive  property 
of  the  state,  acquired  by  arms  and  by  treaties.  But  a 
modified  form  of  citizenship  (de  intus)  was  conceded  to 


TAXATION  349 

foreigners  who  for  fifteen  years  consecutively  had 
lived  in  Venice  and  paid  their  taxes.  The  citizenship 
de  intus  made  a  foreigner  free  of  the  city — that  is  to  say, 
he  became  eligible  for  election  by  trade  guilds,  and 
acquired  the  right  to  carry  on  an  industry.  A  still 
more  extensive  franchise  (de  intus  et  extra)  could  be 
acquired,  with  the  consent  of  the  government,  by  those 
who  had  resided  for  twenty-five  years  in  Venice  and 
paid  their  taxes.  This  citizenship  entitled  its  holder 
to  trade  with  the  Levant  on  the  same  footing  as  the 
Venetian  patrician  or  cittadino  originario — that  is  to 
say,  at  a  much  lower  rate  of  custom  dues  than  that 
levied  on  foreigners. 

Such  were  the  lines  upon  which  Venice  created  and 
absorbed,  for  her  own  benefit,  the  largest  commercial 
business  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Early  Renaissance. 

We  must  now  consider  the  way  in  which  the  state 
secured  its  revenue  from  this  wealth — that  is  to  say, 
how  it  taxed  trade  and  how  it  regulated  its  taxation. 

Apart  from  the  monopoly  of  salt,  the  government 
raised  its  revenue  by  taxation :  the  property  tax 
(decime),  stamp  taxes  on  purchase  and  sale  (messetarid), 
guild  taxes  (tansa),  and  so  on.  But  the  revenue  which 
flowed  directly  from  commerce  was  raised  by  the  two 
great  duties  on  imports  and  exports.  Each  of  these 
customs  had  its  own  custom-house :  the  imports  were 
taxed  at  the  Tola  (tabula,  tavold)  da  mar,  eventually 
known  as  the  Tola,  or  dogana  delf  intrada ;  the  exports 
at  the  Tola  de'  Lombardi,  a  name  which  clearly  indi- 
cates the  earliest  line  of  exportation,  eventually  known 
as  the  Tola  d  insida  (=  uscita}.  But  all  goods  which 
would  now  come  under  the  head  of  excise,  octroi  or 
dazio  consumo  (dazio  di  grassa\  such  as  grain,  wine,  oil, 
meat,  vegetables,  wood,  stone,  hemp,  etc.,  had  a 
separate  custom-house  ;  the  duty  on  such  goods  being 
both  light  and  fluctuating,  it  was  considered  undesir- 
able to  include  them  in  the  protection  tariff,  which 
was  high  and  as  permanent  as  the  government  could 
keep  it. 


350     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

The  export  duty  was  a  nine  per  cent,  ad  valorem 
duty;  the  increase  or  decrease  of  the  burden  was 
effected  by  a  revision  of  the  tariff,  not  by  an  alteration 
of  the  duty.  Capello  lays  it  down  as  a  maxim  of 
Venetian  fiscal  policy  that  duties  should  never  fluctu- 
ate, but  that  the  tariff  should  from  time  to  time  declare 
the  taxable  value  of  goods  subject  to  the  duty.  The 
intention  was  to  prevent  the  foreign  purchaser  from 
reaping  any  benefit  from  the  reduction  of  the  burden. 
He  was  told  that  there  was  an  unalterable  export  duty 
of  nine  per  cent,  on  the  value  of  the  goods,  but  he  was 
not  shown  the  tariff  which  regulated  that  value. 
Rightly  did  Capello  declare  that  "  the  tariff  is  a  very 
subtle  and  secret  affair,  which  binds  together  public 
economy  and  the  movements  of  commerce  for  the 
good  of  the  nation."  "  Never,"  he  goes  on,  "  could 
such  a  work  issue  worthily  from  the  hands  of  mere 
clerks  or  of  merchants  whose  sole  eye  is  to  their  own 
private  gain.  The  tariff  should  be  drawn  up  by  the 
government  to  meet  the  general  needs  of  trade, 
viewed  in  its  widest  relations  to  the  state.  The 
merchant's  part  is  to  state  the  natural  price,  to  indi- 
cate the  places  of  manufacture  and  of  sale ;  the  regu- 
lation of  the  tariff  belongs  to  government." 

The  import  duty  was  also  regulated  by  tariff. 
Capello  cites  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which  a  skilful 
manipulation  of  the  tariff  could  be  made  to  serve 
the  intention  of  the  government  in  the  regulation  of 
Venetian  trade.  The  tariff  on  Apulian  oil  was  con- 
siderably higher  than  on  Corfiot  oil,  the  object  being 
to  keep  alive  the  oil  trade  in  Corfu,  so  as  to  induce 
Venetian  traders  to  go  there.  If  Apulian  oil  cut  out 
Corfiot  and  Ionian  oil  at  Venice,  as  it  naturally  would, 
owing  to  its  abundance,  then  the  olive  would  go  out 
of  cultivation  in  the  islands,  for  Venice  was  its  only 
market,  under  the  legislation  which  compelled  all 
goods  to  be  sent  to  the  Dominante  for  distribution. 
If  Ionian  olives  went  out  of  cultivation,  Corfu  and  the 
islands  would  not  be  able  to  furnish  a  return  cargo, 


SUCCESS  OF  THE  SYSTEM  351 

and  Venetian  shipping  would  cease  to  touch  at  those 
ports.  Therefore,  in  order  to  keep  trade  with  the 
Ionian  islands  alive,  it  was  desirable,  among  other 
steps,  to  penalise  Apulian  oil. 

That  the  Venetian  system  of  commercial  policy  was 
successful  down  to  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  proved  by  her  great  wealth  and  the  testi- 
mony of  contemporaries  to  her  unique  commercial 
position.  The  apogee  was  reached,  broadly  speaking, 
between  1410  and  1490,  and  the  death-bed  speech  of 
the  Doge  Mocenigo  (1423),  in  which  he  reviewed  the 
financial  and  commercial  condition  of  the  state,  shows 
us  the  vigour,  the  extent,  and  the  fruitfulness  of 
Venetian  trade.  The  speech  is  so  well  known — it  is 
quoted  by  all  the  historians — that  we  need  not  reca- 
pitulate its  statements.  The  key  to  the  position  lay 
in  the  direction  of  the  trade  route  and  the  command 
of  that  route.  Had  not  external  events  occurred 
which  altered  these  essential  conditions,  there  seems 
to  be  no  reason  why  Venice  should  not  have  con- 
tinued to  be  the  master  trader  of  the  world,  and  to 
have  reaped  the  fullest  benefit  therefrom  through  the 
operation  of  her  highly  protective  system.  She  had 
no  rival  in  the  Mediterranean ;  her  dependents  would 
not  break  away  from  her  as  long  as  they  were  lightly 
taxed  and  protected ;  corruption  of  manners  and  indo- 
lence following  on  accumulated  wealth  and  prolonged 
success  seemed  to  be  the  only  danger.  But  the  course 
of  events  did  change  at  four  important  points  which 
claim  our  attention  in  as  far  as  they  affected  Venetian 
commerce. 

The  fall  of  Constantinople  and  the  advent  of  the 
Turk  as  a  Mediterranean  power  robbed  Venice  of 
her  undisputed  supremacy  in  the  Levant  and  exposed 
her  to  long  and  exhausting  wars,  which  ended  with 
the  loss  of  two  commanding  points  along  her  trade 
route,  Cyprus  and  Crete. 

The  discovery  of  the  Cape  passage  altered  the  trade 
route  of  the  world  and  threw  it  out  of  the  Mediter- 


352     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

ranean  into  the  ocean.  Merchants  preferred  the  long 
sea  passage  to  the  shorter  caravan  route  across  Asia 
Minor ;  they  avoided  breaking  bulk,  and  they  were 
relieved  from  the  dangers  of  Arab  marauders  and 
the  heavy  duties  imposed  by  the  Soldan  of  Egypt. 
But  the  result  was  that  Venice  lost  the  advantage  of 
her  geographical  position.  The  great  ports  of  dis- 
charge were  transferred  to  Portugal,  England,  Hol- 
land. Protection  was  powerless  to  save  Venetian 
commerce  when  there  was  nothing  left  to  protect. 
For  example,  Madeira  sugar  in  foreign  bottoms  came 
on  the  Venetian  market,  and,  in  spite  of  the  high 
duty,  cut  out  the  sugar  from  Cyprus,  Alexandria, 
Sicily,  which  was  reduced  to  "  vilissimo  prezzo,"  and 
even  at  these  lowest  prices  was  unable  to  hold  its 
own.  With  decline  in  the  Levant  trade  came  the 
decline  in  shipbuilding,  the  stagnation  of  Venetian 
industries  which  were  fed  by  that  trade,  and  eventu- 
ally the  investment  of  capital  in  government  stocks 
and  in  land. 

The  League  of  Cambray,  though  it  failed  to  achieve 
its  object  of  partitioning  Venice  and  did  not  deprive 
her  of  her  land  dominions,  left  her  crippled  by  the 
exhausting  drain  of  eight  years'  war;  her  treasury 
was  depleted,  and  she  never  recovered  her  elasticity. 

Finally,  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  and  the  achieve- 
ment of  Dutch  independence  brought  both  English 
and  Dutch  into  the  Mediterranean  as  trading  com- 
petitors. The  English  secured  their  capitulations  at 
Constantinople  in  1583  through  the  ambassador  Har- 
born,  and  the  powerful  Levant  Company  was  soon 
trading  vigorously  in  the  East.  The  Dutch  envoy, 
Cornelius  van  Haagen,  was  also  successful  in  1612. 
Both  English  and  Dutch  would  have  traded  with 
Venice,  but,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  jealous 
conservatism  of  the  Republic,  its  dogged  adherence 
to  the  "  maxims  of  our  ancestors,"  prevented  them 
from  opening  their  port.  The  Grand  Duke  of  Tus- 
cany threw  open  Leghorn,  Civita  Vecchia  was  made 


THE  CAPE   ROUTE  353 

a  free  port,  Marseilles  also  bid  for  the  trade,  and 
Venice,  in  spite  of  her  superior  geographical  position, 
was  left  in  a  backwater. 

There  was  no  lack  of  commercial  acumen  in  the 
Republic,  and  many  of  her  merchant  statesmen  appre- 
ciated at  once  and  to  the  full  the  significance  of  these 
events.  This  is  what  Priuli  wrote  in  his  Diary1  on 
receipt  of  the  news  that  the  Cape  route  was 
discovered : 

"  All  Venice  was  alarmed  and  amazed,  and  the 
wiser  heads  took  it  for  the  worst  news  that  could 
have  reached  us.  For  every  one  knows  that  Venice 
has  reached  her  commanding  prestige  and  wealth 
solely  by  her  mercantile  marine,  which  brought  in 
every  year  great  store  of  spices,  so  that  foreign 
merchants  flocked  to  buy;  and  their  presence  and 
their  business  left  us  a  large  profit.  But  now  by  this 
new  route  the  spices  from  the  East  will  be  carried  to 
Lisbon,  where  Hungarians,  Germans,  Flemish,  and 
French  will  go  to  purchase  them,  as  they  will  be 
cheaper  there  than  here.  For  the  spices  which  reach 
Venice  have  to  pass  through  Syria  and  the  territories 
of  the  soldan,  and  everywhere  they  have  to  pay  such 
exorbitant  duties  that  by  the  time  they  reach  Venice 
what  cost  a  ducat  to  purchase  will  have  to  be  sold 
for  eighty  or  a  hundred  ducats.  The  sea  route,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  free  from  these  burdens,  and  the 
Portuguese  can  sell  at  a  lower  rate.  While  the  better 
heads  see  this,  others  refuse  to  believe  the  news,  while 
others  again  declare  that  the  King  of  Portugal  cannot 
keep  up  this  trade  to  Calicut,  for  out  of  thirteen 
carvels  which  he  sent  out,  only  six  have  come  back 
safe,  and  so  the  loss  will  exceed  the  gain,  nor  can 
he  easily  find  men  to  risk  their  lives  in  so  long  and 
perilous  a  voyage  ;  again,  it  is  urged  that  the  soldan, 
when  he  realizes  the  danger  to  his  revenue,  will  take 
steps — and  so  on,  and  so  on ;  seeking,  as  usual,  to 
find  out  reasons  to  support  their  hopes  and  refusing 

1  Priuli,  Diari,  in  the  Archi-vio  Veneto^  torn.  i. 
VOL.   I.  23 


354     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

to   hear  and   believe  what  is  reported  to  their  own 
hurt." 

It  may  be  asked,  Why  did  not  Venice  adopt  the 
new  trade  route  herself?  She  was  invited  to  by  the 
King  of  Portugal ;  she  still  possessed  a  powerful  fleet, 
and  her  seamen  were  inferior  to  none  in  training. 
But  in  the  first  place  Gibraltar  blocked  the  way. 
Spain  would  have  stopped  and  taxed  her  there.  Then 
she  dared  not  offend  the  soldan  by  brusquely  aban- 
doning the  Syria  route  from  which  he  was  drawing 
revenue.  She  contented  herself  with  fruitlessly  im- 
ploring him  to  lower  his  dues — a  step  which  shows 
that  she  knew  the  Eastern  route  to  be  vital  to  her 
existence.  Finally,  the  Venetian  build  of  .ships  was 
designed  for  the  Mediterranean  waters;  it  was  not 
suited  to  the  ocean.  Venice  could  not  or  would  not 
change  her  build.  Sir  Paul  Pindar  and  other  dis- 
tinguished Turkey  merchants  called  the  attention  of 
the  Venetian  ambassador,  Foscarini,1  to  this  defect 
many  years  later,  but  without  avail.  The  truth  is 
that  the  discovery  of  the  Cape  route  meant  a  disloca- 
tion of  Venetian  commerce  and  shipping  so  violent 
that  it  was  past  her  power  to  remedy  it.  She  did 
make  one  attempt  to  take  the  only  effectual  course 
for  the  recovery  of  the  Eastern  route  upon  which  her 
commercial  life  depended.  In  1504  she  approached  the 
soldan  with  proposals  for  cutting  a  Suez  Canal,2  and  later 
on  she  instructed  her  ambassador  at  Constantinople 
to  bring  the  subject  before  the  sultan.3  But  Turkey 
was  not  master  in  Egypt,  nor  was  the  sultan  eager  to 
help  his  rival  in  the  Levant  to  recover  a  lost  position. 

Venice  was,  indeed,  hopelessly  crippled.  Her 
vitality  as  an  emporium  was  undermined ;  the  flow 
of  goods  which  she  could  offer  for  sale  gradually 

1  Archivio  di  Stato,  Senate,  Secreta,  Dispacci,  Inghilterra,  Dec.  2, 
1611. 

s  Fulin,  "  II  Canal  di  Suez  e  la  Rep.  di  Venezia,"  Arch.  Ven.  torn.  i. 

3  Archivio  di  Stato,  Senate,  Secreta,  Dispacci,  Costantinopoli, 
July  23,  1586. 


DECLINE  355 

dwindled.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  change  in  her 
commercial  and  fiscal  policy  could  have  benefited  her. 
She  was  not  a  great  manufacturer,  and  the  free  trade 
panacea  would  not  have  found  a  field.  She  did  not 
attempt  it — even  if  she  ever  envisaged  it.  In  the 
region  of  her  industries  she  remained  rigidly  pro- 
tectionist to  the  last.  As  regards  her  carrying  trade 
and  her  port  it  was  different.  There  she  did  make 
an  attempt  on  the  free  trade  lines,  and  the  interest 
of  her  commercial  history  from  1550  onwards  centres 
chiefly  round  this  point. 

The  State  Papers  on  this  subject  present  us  with  a 
long  series  of  laments  on  the  slow  decline  of  commerce. 
The  Senate  again  and  again  record  the  fact  and  call  on 
the  board  of  trade  to  study  the  situation  and  to  sug- 
gest remedies,  with  no  better  result  than  to  confirm 
the  "  deep-seated  distrust  of  the  competence  of  legisla- 
tures "  to  discover  "  tonics  to  invigorate  national  com- 
merce" when  once  a  decline  from  natural  causes  has 
set  in.  A  Venetian,  reflecting  on  the  situation,  sums  it 
up  as  follows : 

"  Our  ancestors  were  brave,  fierce,  impatient  of  in- 
juries, quick  to  strike,  prone  to  fight.  Now  we  are  of 
milder  mind,  meek,  long-suffering,  shy  of  a  blow, 
shrinking  from  war.  And  this,  I  take  it,  because  in 
the  olden  times  we  all  lived  by  trading  and  not  on 
fixed  incomes ;  we  spent  many  years  of  our  lives..away 
from  home  in  distant  lands,  where  we  dealt  with  dif- 
ferent races  and  grew  courageous.  Most  of  our  days 
were  passed  at  sea  in  struggle  with  storm  and  tempest 
and  buccaneers,  and  we  waxed  valiant  and  strong  to 
strike ;  for  those  who  tried  to  take  our  goods  tried  to 
rob  us  of  our  food,  and  with  our  food  went  our  life. 
Now  few  of  us  live  by  trade.  Most  subsist  on  their 
incomes  or  on  their  official  pay.  Few  leave  Venice; 
fewer  still  for  distant  lands ;  and  so,  as  we  never  see 
them  close,  we  have  come  to  believe  that  the  rest  of 
mankind  are  born  with  three  hands,  and  thus  we  have 
grown  cowards." 


356     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

In  quieter  language  that  is  just  what  the  English 
merchants  said  to  Foscarini,  and  he  reported 
home * : 

"  It  is  generally  thought  that  in  a  very  short  time  the 
trade  of  the  Dutch  with  all  parts  of  the  world  will 
multiply,  for  they  are  content  with  moderate  gain  and 
are  richly  supplied  with  excellent  seamen,  ships, 
money,  everything  that  used  to  belong  especially  to 
Venice  when  her  trade  was  flourishing.  The  leading 
merchants  here  point  out  to  me  that  the  trade  of 
Venice  has  declined  because  Venetians  have  almost 
abandoned  navigation,  investing  their  money  in  estates. 
As  matters  now  stand  there  is  not,  either  in  England 
or  Holland,  a  ship  so  small  that  she  could  not  out-fight 
the  biggest  Venetian  and  weather  a  storm  with  greater 
security.  They  also  attack  the  build  of  Venetian  craft, 
which,  they  say,  is  ill  suited  to  face  either  the  ocean  or 
the  pirates.  They  declare  that  twenty  English  sailors 
would  show  more  fight  than  forty  Venetians.  Yet  all 
these  defects  might  be  remedied ;  for  the  Venetians 
have  a  far  shorter  voyage  to  make  and  through  a  sea 
less  infested  by  pirates.  If  they  chose,  they  might 
build  ships  of  a  type  that  experience  has  approved, 
while  the  geographical  position  of  Venice  is  hers  and 
hers  only." 

The  government  was  alive  to  the  situation  and 
attempted  remedies.  In  1506  the  board  of  trade  had 
been  created  because,  in  the  words  of  the  preamble, 
"  Commerce  is  in  disorder  and  because  the  cabinet 
has  not  time  to  take  the  matter  into  full  consideration." 
The  board  soon  (1514)  recognized  the  true  cause  of 
decline  in  trade  and  revenue  "  owing  to  the  city  having 
lost  its  ancient  flow  of  traffic,  which  now  has  taken 
another  route."  But  down  to  1610  the  board  remained 
strictly  protectionist.  As  an  example  of  its  attitude, 
which  can  be  gathered  from  the  resolutions  of  the 
Senate  as  inspired  by  the  board,  we  may  take  the 

1  Archivio  di  Stato,  Senate,  Secreta,  Dispacci,  Inghilterra,  Dec.  2, 
1611, 


FREE  TRADE  EXPERIMENT  357 

question  of  the  currant  trade.  Elizabeth  had  granted 
to  Accerbo  Velutelli-a  monopoly  of  currants  in  England. 
Venice  raised  the  export  duty  on  currants  for  foreigners, 
and  Elizabeth  retaliated  by  imposing  a  heavy  duty  on 
Cretan  sweet  wines.  The  whole  legislation  as  regards 
currants  was  rearranged  with  a  view  to  preventing  the 
English  from  trading  direct  with  Zante ;  the  people  of 
Zante  were  ordered  to  send  their  currants,  in  Venetian 
bottoms,  to  Venice,  and  were  forbidden  to  sell  in  Zante 
to  English  buyers.  It  was  hoped  that  the  English 
would  thus  be  forced  to  come  to  Venice  for  their  cur- 
rants, and,  under  the  two-thirds  rule,  would  bring  their 
produce  intended  for  Eastern  markets  to  that  city. 
But  nothing  of  the  sort  happened.  The  people  of 
Zante  came  to  an  understanding  with  their  British 
customers.  They  ran  their  currants  across  to  Glarenza 
— in  Turkish  territory — by  night,  and  the  English 
laded  there  and  at  Patras  without  paying  any  Venetian 
dues  at  all.1 

By  1609,  however,  certain  considerations  had  led  the 
board  of  trade  to  advocate  free  principles  in  dealing 
with  commerce.  The  decline  in  the  silk  trade  generally 
had  alarmed  the  Senate,  owing  to  the  consequent  fall 
in  revenue — the  Senate,  as  usual,  kept  its  eye  on 
revenue  rather  than  on  the  sources  of  revenue — and  it 
was  proposed  to  raise  the  duties  as  the  only  way  of 
meeting  the  decline.  The  Veronese  protested.  They 
declared  that  it  was  very  doubtful  whether  the  con- 
sumer in  this  case  would  pay  the  increased  price — 
"  for  the  purchasers  are  few  and  rich,  while  the  pro- 
ducers are  many,  scattered,  and  poor ;  it  will  therefore 
rest  with  the  purchaser,  not  with  the  seller,  to  fix  the 
price."  The  board,  to  whom  the  protest  had  been  re- 
ferred, report  against  the  increase  of  tax,  a  step  which 
can  only  "weaken  the  trade";  they  then  go  on  to 
state  the  true  cause  of  the  decline.  It  is  the  free  ports 

1  Archivio  di  Stato,  Collegio,  Secreta,  Esposizioni  Principi,  Aug.  22, 
1607 ;  Senate,  Secreta,  Dispacci,  Inghilterra,  Dec.  12,  1608,  Jan.  16, 
1609,  Jan.  22,  1609. 


358     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL   POLICY 

of  Leghorn  and  Marseilles 1  that  have  ruined  the  wool 
trade  and  are  now  ruining  the  silk.  The  fall  in  revenue 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Dutch,  English,  and  French 
are  trading  in  their  own  ships  to  the  East,  where  they 
buy  silk  and  land  it  in  Marseilles  for  Lyons,  or  take  it 
to  London  for  manufacture.  A  little  later  Aloise 
Contarini  reports  from  London  that  "  the  English 
prefer  the  port  of  Leghorn,  where  they  only  pay  a 
crown  for  every  bale  of  goods,  whatever  its  nature, 
and  are  allowed  to  bond  it  for  a  year;  whereas  the 
heavy  import  and  export  dues  in  Venice,  coupled 
with  the  greater  distance,  induce  them  to  avoid  that 
port." 

With  these  considerations  in  their  mind,  the  board 
of  trade  presented  the  following  report  to  the  Senate 
on  July  5,  i6io2: 

"  The  board  of  trade  is  called  upon  to  give  its 
opinion  on  the  proposal  submitted  by  Paulo  Santorin 
for  the  repeal  of  the  law  forbidding  any  but  Venetian 
citizens  to  trade  from  this  port  to  the  Levant. 

"  The  advantages  would  be  the  opening  of  new  firms 
in  the  Levant,  and  the  introduction  of  fresh  business 
into  Venice.  Such  a  scheme  would  in  earlier  times 
have  carried  no  weight,  but  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs  it  appears  to  us  that  it  should  be  adopted.  .  .  . 
The  fact  that  the  Levant  trade  was  reserved  for 
Venetian  citizens  shows  that  that  trade  was  considered 
to  belong  absolutely  to  Venice,  and  that  there  was  no 
foreign  competition.  The  government  reserved  for 
their  own  citizens  the  right  to  trade,  and  not  for  all  of 
them,  but  only  for  the  privileged  class.  This  re- 
striction, however,  had  the  effect  of  keeping  much 
capital  out  of  the  trade,  and  therefore  injured  the 
revenue.  Nevertheless,  had  the  trade  continued  as  it 
was,  the  present  proposal  might  have  been  laid  aside. 

1  See  also  Archivio  di  State,  Senate,  Secreta,  Dispacci,  Inghilterra, 
July  14,  1611  ;  Pindar  to  Foscarini  on  Venetian  trade. 

2  Archivio  diStato,  Papers  of  the  Cinque  Savii  alia  Mercanzia  under 
date. 


FREE  TRADE   EXPERIMENT  359 

But  the  trade  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  foreigners, 
and  foreign  ships  now  sail  straight  to  and  from  the 
Levant  without  touching  Venice,  preferring  to  trade 
with  free  ports,  where  they  are  favoured  by  the 
government. 

"The  reasons  for  the  decline  of  Venetian  trade  are 
various,  well  known  to  everybody,  and  painful  to 
discuss.  We  will  only  remark  that  our  western  trade 
is  quite  dead,  our  eastern  trade  reduced  to  a  few  ships, 
and  even  the  dribble  of  goods  that  do  reach  us  does 
not  find  a  ready  purchaser,  because  foreign  merchants 
have  removed  their  houses  elsewhere.  So  that  the 
Venetian  market,  once  so  famous  and  so  replete  with 
merchandise,  which  poured  into  it  from  every  quarter 
of  the  globe  and  attracted  foreign  traders,  is  now  all 
but  annihilated. 

"  We  consider  that  nothing  will  serve  better  to  re- 
store its  lost  vigour  than  to  draw  the  merchants  away 
from  the  ports  that  are  competing  with  us;  for  it  is 
obvious  that  the  growth  of  those  markets  has  been  the 
ruin  of  ours.  This  cannot  be  done  by  force ;  it  must 
be  done  by  inducement,  and  we  recommend  the  repeal 
of  the  present  restrictions,  leaving  every  one  free  to 
trade  on  conditions  to  be  laid  down  hereafter.  We 
further  recommend  the  lightening  of  taxation,  so  as  to 
allow  the  merchants  of  this  market  to  compete  with 
our  rivals.  This  proposal  should  not  be  regarded 
with  horror,  but  should  be  carefully  weighed.  It  would 
certainly  bring  about  striking  benefits,  and  later  on,  if 
trade  recovered  sufficiently,  some  taxation  might  be 
reimposed.  These  two  points — repeal  of  restrictions 
and  relief  from  taxation — we  commend  to  your  atten- 
tion. We  hold  it  certain  that  traders  would  flock  here 
if  allowed  to  do  so,  both  on  the  score  of  the  safety  of 
our  waters  and  because  of  the  geographical  convenience 
for  eastern  trade  and  for  the  distribution  of  goods 
through  Germany.  Moreover,  we  have  some  inkling 
that  these  reforms  are  earnestly  desired  by  the 
merchant  class." 


360     COMMERCIAL  AND   FISCAL  POLICY 

This  was  the  first  enunciation  of  free  trade  ideas  in 
Venice,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  merchants  were 
in  favour  of  them.  But  the  board  of  trade  was  in 
advance  of  the  Senate  in  this  matter.  All  free  trade 
proposals  were  met  by  a  stubborn,  conservative  ob- 
jection to  touch  the  Leggi  vecchie.  The  attack  was 
renewed,  however,  in  1658 ;  the  ruinous  competition 
of  the  ports  of  Leghorn  and  Marseilles  was  pressed 
home,  and  in  1662  the  Senate  repealed  the  import  duty, 
leaving  Venice  a  free  port  for  imports  but  still  re- 
taining the  export  duty.  This  was  only  a  half-measure 
at  best,  and  it  erred  in  removing  the  less  objectionable 
of  the  two  burdens.  The  merchant  would  have  wil- 
lingly paid  a  light  duty,  for  revenue,  upon  imports,  but 
he  disliked  the  nine  per  cent,  ad  valorem  duty  on 
exports.  The  error  lay  in  this,  that  the  geographical 
advantages  of  Venice  as  a  port  would  have  induced 
merchants  to  come  there  any  way,  in  spite  of  import 
duties,  but  the  retention  of  the  export  duty  gave  Leghorn 
the  preference,  as  it  hampered  distribution  from  Venice, 
which  was  the  merchants'  chief  object.  In  1668  the 
States  General  asked  for  the  repeal  of  the  export  duty. 
But  the  partial  experiment  of  a  free  port  was  not 
working  up  to  expectation,  and  the  Senate  declined  to 
do  anything  more.  Finally,  in  1682,  after  a  trial  of 
twenty  years — which  showed  a  loss  of  one  and  a  half 
million  ducats,  attributed  wrongly  to  the  fault  of  the 
free  port  principles — the  Senate  ordered  a  return  to 
the  old  Dazio  da  mar,  or  import  duty,  and  the  experi- 
ment came  to  an  end  in  failure  that  only  served  to 
confirm  the  protectionists,  though  the  real  causes  were 
the  half-measures  adopted  at  the  beginning,  and  the 
almost  insuperable  difficulty  of  recovering  a  lost 
trade. 

That  "  foreign  merchants  would  flock  to  Venice  if 
allowed  to  do  so,"  as  the  board  of  trade  declared, 
seems  to  be  proved  by  the  persistence  with  which 
both  Dutch  and  English  strove  to  break  down  Vene- 
tian restrictions,  thereby  demonstrating  the  essential 


RETURN   TO   PROTECTION  361 

importance  of  the  geographical  position.  Failing  to 
induce  the  Senate  to  make  Venice  a  genuine  free  port, 
the  States  General  endeavoured,  through  foreign  mer- 
chants resident  in  Venice,  to  secure  freedom  of  transit. 
But  here,  again,  the  feeling  was  against  them.  The 
Venetian  government  knew  that  Venice  was  losing 
her  trade — nay!  had  lost  it — yet  they  would  not  let 
the  foreigner  in,  though  their  own  board  of  trade 
insisted  that  the  mere  presence  of  foreign  merchants, 
the  transit  and  handling  of  their  goods,  must  bring 
some  benefit  to  the  moribund  market.  Capello,  who 
was  an  out-and-out  protectionist,  expressed  the  cur- 
rent view  when  he  said,  "  Had  Venice  thought  that  by 
granting  free  transit  she  would  draw  to  herself  the 
trade  of  the  Mediterranean  she  would  have  done  so. 
But  she  knew  that  she  would  in  that  case  become  merely 
a  forwarding  agency,  as  Leghorn  was  for  the  English  ; 
that  she  would  lose  her  position  as  an  emporium 
and  as  a  luogo  di  contralto"  It  was  useless  for  the 
board  of  trade  to  say  that  she  had  already  lost  it. 
The  Senate  refused  to  grant  transit. 

The  Dutch  attack  was  followed  by  an  English 
attempt  to  break  down  Venetian  reluctance.  The 
English  merchants  resident  in  Venice  put  forward 
four  requests.  They  asked  for  the  exemption  from 
taxation  of  salted  goods  (they  had  herrings  in  their 
mind) ;  freedom  from  the  Gulf  tax,  a  duty  imposed 
in  return  for  protection  inside  the  Adriatic  ;  delegates 
on  the  board  of  trade  ;  free  transit  of  goods  for  Zante 
(they  meant  English  cloths  which  they  would  take 
out,  returning  with  currants).  These  proposals  met 
with  no  response,  and  in  1702  a  commercial  treaty 
between  England  and  Venice  was  first  suggested  by 
the  British  ambassador,  the  Earl  of  Manchester.  In 
1706  he  submitted  to  the  Senate  a  draft  of  "articles 
for  reciprocal  benefit,"  one  of  which  ensured  a  free 
port.  The  proposals  were  welcomed  by  the  merchants 
and  traders  of  Venice.  They  declared  "  that  if  the 
Senate  would  open  the  port,  Venice  would  regain  her 


362     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

old  position  as  an  emporium.  All  your  subjects  and 
the  whole  business  class  desire  this  ;  foreign  merchants 
are  panting  for  it ;  they  are  only  waiting  this  conces- 
sion to  pour  themselves,  their  substance,  and  their 
families  into  Venice,  and  to  drop  Leghorn  and  Genoa  ; 
one  of  which  would  be  ruined,  and  the  other  reduced 
to  the  bare  seashore  it  was  before  it  became  a  free 
port."  Such,  says  Capello,  was  the  language  current 
on  the  Venetian  market  and  in  the  Venetian  streets. 
But  the  attitude  of  the  government  was  hostile. 
"  There  were  those,"  to  quote  Capello,  "  who  weighed 
the  affair  truly,  and  saw  that  a  real  good  would  be  lost 
for  a  fancied  gain,  and  that  such  suggestions  came 
not  from  friends,  but  from  those  astute  nations  the 
English  and  the  Dutch,  who  were  only  seeking  to 
enlarge  their  own  trade  by  entirely  ruining  the  re- 
mainder of  ours."  The  Senate  referred  the  proposals 
to  the  board  of  trade  with  orders  to  report.  The 
board  entrusted  the  examination  of  the  draft  clauses 
to  its  financial  secretary,  John  Calichiopolo.  He  at 
once  remarked  that  the  title,  "  Articles  for  reciprocal 
benefit,"  was  specious,  as  there  was  no  reciprocity 
about  them ;  a  scrutiny  of  each  clause  proved  their 
injury  to  navigation,  revenue,  industries.  If  facilities 
for  Venetian  goods  could  be  obtained  from  England, 
then  they  might  negotiate.  This  view  was  supported 
by  the  leading  merchants — "  Capi  di  Piazza  " — who  had 
been  consulted,  and  who  suggested  a  preference  for 
Venetian  oil,  currants,  and  rice.  Calichiopolo's  obser- 
vations were  embodied  in  the  board's  report  to  the 
Senate,  presented  in  May,  1707.  Before  the  Senate 
had  time  to  frame  its  reply  to  the  British  ambassador 
he  had  left,  and  the  resident  secretary,  Cole,  submitted 
eleven  definite  proposals  as  "  preliminaries  "  for  a  com- 
mercial treaty,  (i)  As  British  shipping  receives  no 
protection  from  the  Venetian  fleet,  the  Gulf  tax  of 
100  ducats  per  ship  should  be  abolished.  (2)  The 
obligation  to  pay  for  a  pilot  from  Istria  into  port, 
which  amounts  to  10  ducats,  to  be  removed,  except 


NEGOTIATIONS  WITH   ENGLAND      363 

when  the  pilot  is  actually  employed.  (3)  British 
deserters  may  not  sue  in  Venetian  courts,  and  shall 
be  consigned  to  their  ships.  (4)  No  compulsory  loans 
to  be  exacted  from  British  merchants  in  Venice. 
(5)  To  benefit  Venetian  commerce,  transit  of  goods 
to  be  facilitated ;  port  dues  lowered,  so  as  to  cut  out 
any  other  Mediterranean  port.  English  dried  fish 
to  be  exempt  from  export  duty.  No  fixed  price  for 
British  fish.  (6)  The  establishment  of  a  free  port, 
as  at  Leghorn.  (7)  As  Venetian  cloth  is  inferior  in 
quality,  and  "  in  order  that  the  Illustrious  Nobility 
of  Venice  may  be  dressed  with  the  greatest  possible 
decorum  and  splendour,"  British  cloth  may  be  intro- 
duced and  sold  on  payment  of  a  small  duty.  (8)  As 
British  shipping  is  sure  to  crowd  to  Venice,  and  should 
not  be  delayed  there  waiting  for  a  return  cargo,  ships 
shall  be  allowed  to  lade  at  once  for  any  port,  even 
though  Venetian  ships  be  lading  for  the  same  destina- 
tion. (9)  As  return  cargoes  will  not  always  be  found, 
British  ships  may  make  up  cargo  at  any  port  in  the 
Gulf.  (10)  No  extra  duties  on  currants,  (n)  British 
ships  shall  be  exempt  from  the  rule  requiring  all  ships 
to  discharge  two-thirds  of  their  cargo  in  Venice  before 
they  can  reload.  These  proposals  display  free  trade 
ideas,  but  it  is  obvious  that  in  many  cases — for 
example,  in  clauses  seven,  eight,  nine,  and  eleven— 
they  cut  right  across  the  traditions  of  Venetian  com- 
mercial policy.  The  Senate,  however,  on  the  advice 
of  the  board  of  trade,  authorized  the  opening  of  nego- 
tiations, though  they  refused  categorically  to  discuss 
clauses  two,  four,  seven,  eight,  and  nine ;  and  pre- 
sented nine  counter-demands,  including  immunity 
from  search,  reduction  of  duty  on  currants,  equaliza- 
tion of  British  and  Venetian  duties,  relief  from  the 
Trinity  House  dues  and  the  Levant  Company  dues, 
restoration  of  the  oil  trade.  A  conference  between  the 
British  secretary  and  the  board  took  place,  and  the 
secretary  promised  to  forward  the  Venetian  counter- 
demands,  but  added  that  some  of  these  contravened 


364     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

the  Navigation  Act.  No  answer  came  from  England, 
however,  and  the  Venetians  made  up  their  minds  that 
England  wanted  concessions,  but  would  grant  none. 
"  The  matter  dropped,"  says  Capello,  "  and  we  forgot 
all  about  it.  Would  to  God  England  had !  For  she 
kept  both  her  own  eleven  points  and  our  nine  before 
her  eyes,  resolutely  determined  to  secure  the  one  and 
to  refuse  the  other ;  and  she  did."  The  persistence  of 
English  merchants  in  Venice,  and  the  apathy  of  the 
Venetian  Senate,  led  eventually  and  gradually  to  the 
reduction  of  the  tax  on  dried  fish  and  to  the  abolition 
of  the  Gulf  tax.  English  and  Dutch  cloths  almost 
succeeded  in  getting  in  ;  leave  had  been  granted  in  1733, 
and  thanks  returned,  when  the  French  stepped  forward 
and  claimed  a  like  privilege,  or  its  refusal  to  England. 
The  English  secured  the  right  to  lade  anywhere  in  the 
Gulf  by  simply  taking  it.  Concurrent  right  to  lade 
in  Venice  even  if  Venetian  ships  were  also  lading  for 
same  destination  they  secured  partly  because  they 
were  the  sole  importers  of  many  necessities,  and 
could  dictate  terms,  and  partly  because  theirs  were 
the  only  ships  trading  to  ports  of  any  distance  and 
importance.  In  fact,  the  British  had  the  port  and  the 
market  of  Venice,  such  as  it  was,  entirely  at  their 
mercy. 

The  board  of  trade  made  one  last  effort  in  the 
direction  of  freer  trading.  In  September,  1733,  it 
proposed  to  remove  the  stifling  export  duty.  The 
Senate  applauded  the  zeal  of  the  board,  but  ordered 
a  further  inquiry  on  certain  points.  Capello,  with 
two  others,  was  appointed  an  extra  member,  and 
being  a  convinced  protectionist  successfully  opposed 
the  suggestion. 

The  whole  question  continued  to  occupy  the 
attention  of  the  government,  who  called  for  reports. 
The  last  of  these,  the  report  presented  by  Andrea 
Tron  in  1784,  gives  us  a  full  and  lively  statement  of 
the  case.  Tron,  setting  out  to  examine  the  condition 
of  commerce  in  Venice,  asserts  at  once  "that  agri- 


TRON'S  REPORT  365 

culture,  industries,  and  trade  are  so  intimately  con- 
nected that  to  discuss  industries  without  bearing 
agriculture  and  commerce  in  mind  would  be  like 
arguing  without  premises  or  conclusions.  Venice 
herself  presents  the  most  remarkable  example  of  this 
interdependence,  for  she,  first  and  alone,  gave  to  the 
world  the  spectacle  of  an  entire  nation  concentrated 
in  a  single  city — without  territory  and  without  natural 
products — and  yet  rising  to  wealth  and  greatness  by 
the  application  of  principles  which  other  nations 
noted  and  copied  to  her  injury."  Tron  declares  the 
decline  in  Venetian  industries  to  be  universal,  and 
that  it  began  in  1645,  at  the  time  of  the  war  of  Candia, 
and  has  gone  on  steadily  owing  to  the  competition  of 
other  nations  in  the  Levant.  The  mercantile  marine 
is  at  a  low  ebb,  imports  far  exceed  exports,  the 
Venetian  merchant  has  almost  disappeared,  and 
agency  business  is  almost  the  only  business  done. 
The  principles  of  protection,  which  made  Venice 
great,  have  been  learned  by  other  nations,  and  applied 
against  her.  Tron's  remedy  was  to  endeavour  to 
induce  capitalists  to  embark  once  more  in  commerce. 
He  suggested  that  the  government  should  encourage 
the  establishment  of  trading  companies.  A  pro- 
clamation in  this  sense  was  issued  and  a  company 
formed ;  but  the  fall  of  the  Republic  was  now  close 
at  hand,  and  the  experiment  never  had  a  fair  chance. 
To  resume.  Venice  owed  her  commercial  success 
to  her  geographical  position,  and  to  her  energy  in 
seizing  and  keeping  the  great  trade  route  of  the 
world.  When  the  course  of  events  changed  that 
route,  the  value  of  her  position  was  greatly  diminished. 
A  proof  is  afforded  by  the  renewed  activity  of  the 
port  since  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal,  which  has 
restored  to  Venice  the  value  of  her  site.  She  was 
not  primarily  an  industrial  state ;  she  was  an 
emporium,  and  her  carrying  trade  was  essential  to 
the  feeding  of  that  emporium.  In  her  case  M.  Yves 
Guyot's  dictum  that  "  la  fortune  d'une  nation  c'est  le 


366     COMMERCIAL  AND  FISCAL  POLICY 

pouvoir  d'achat  des  autres  nations "  hardly  holds. 
The  purchasing  power  of  other  nations  grew  steadily, 
but  that  did  not  help  Venice  when  her  store  of  foreign 
goods  ceased  to  be  full.  She  was  essentially  a  city 
state,  she  never  really  became  a  territorial  state. 
Though  forced  on  to  the  mainland  by  stress  of 
circumstances,  the  need  for  a  food-growing  area,  and 
the  necessity  to  command  the  passes  so  as  to  ensure 
an  outlet  for  her  goods — she  never  welded  her  main- 
land possessions  into  one  homogeneous  whole  with 
herself.  Had  she  done  so,  it  is  possible  that  the  silk 
of  Verona,  the  wool  of  Brescia,  Bergamo,  and  Padua, 
the  iron  of  Agordo,  the  arms  factories  of  the  Bresciano 
might  have  converted  her  into  a  genuine  industrial 
state,  and  given  her  the  commodities  other  nations 
sought,  and  therefore  the  chance  of  applying  the 
doctrines  of  free  trade.  But  such  a  fusion  never 
took  place.  Her  subject  cities  and  territories  were 
all  regarded  as  merely  feeders  for  the  Citta  Dominante, 
She  herself  was  a  manufacturer  to  a  considerable 
extent,  and  there,  perhaps,  had  she  shown  more 
elasticity,  had  she  entertained  the  freer  commercial 
ideas  of  her  own  board  of  trade,  she  might  have  saved 
her  industries  by  keeping  the  door  open  for  raw 
material.  But  her  closed  port  sent  raw  material  for 
silk  and  woollen  industries  to  Leghorn  and  Marseilles, 
and  hampered  her  activity  at  home.  Her  conservatism 
refused  to  yield ;  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  break 
from  the  leggi  antiche ;  she  never  learned  the  lesson 
that  "  there  is  no  pre-established  harmony  between 
economic  world  interests  and  national  well-being," 
nor  would  she  admit  "  that  the  character  of  fiscal 
policy  should  vary  with  circumstances.' 


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